John Kendrick’s Weblog

Air Sharing is another wildly popular, and for the moment, FREE application for the iPhone. [edited 10/30/08 - this app is no longer free according to another poster - see his reply to this post below]  After just a short time using this application, it has replaced a paid application, Data Case, that I was using for the same purpose.

Air Sharing allows you to create folders on your iPhone right from your desktop computer and transfer files to those folders over wifi. Before the app store provided applications to do this, I used to send an email message with a file attachment, and store it in a documents folder in my email, which of course was synched with the iPhone. This procedure worked, but it took a number of steps to switch to the document folder, open the message and open and view the attachment on the iPhone. And if the file changed, I would have to jump through all of those hoops again.

Sharing Files and Folders

With the Air Sharing application, it is as simple as using any folder right on your Mac. Just open the Air Sharing app on the iPhone, open a Finder window on your Mac, and click Go, Connect to Server.  The first time you use the application will need to type the iPhone’s IP address, but thereafter it can be saved as a favorite and simply selected from the server list.

Finder's Connection Dialog

Drag and Drop

After a successful connection, just drag and drop individual files or even complete folders from any folder on your computer directly to the iPhone.  The picture here is displaying the folders and files already stored on the iPhone.

Using Finder to Share Files with iPhone

Open Folders

After transferring files and folders to your iPhone, they will be available whenever you need them.  Just open the Airsharing app on the iPhone, and your folders are displayed.  Touch a folder and it will open, revealing the files and folders that it contains.

Folders displayed on iPhone after Airsharing from your Mac

File list from the iPhone after Airsharing

View Files

Touch a file and it will be opened for viewing.  Rotate the phone and the file will reformat for a landscape display.

PDF File Open for Viewing

The Airsharing application can open and view the following file types.            iWork (Pages, Numbers, and Keynote), full resolution if saved with preview Microsoft Office (Word, Excel, and PowerPoint), with limited support for XML formats Web Archive (web-page downloads packaged by Safari) Web page PDF HTML RTF (Rich Text Format) RTFD (TextEdit documents with embedded images) Plain text (many different file extensions), with Unicode support Source code (C/C++, Objective C/C++, C#, Java, Javascript, XML, shell scripts, Perl, Ruby, Python, and more), with color-coded formatting Movie (standard iPhone formats: H.264, MPEG-4, 3GPP, etc.) Audio (standard iPhone formats: MP3 VBR, AAC, Audible, Apple Lossless, AIFF, WAV, CAF, etc.) Image (standard iPhone formats: GIF, PNG, JPG, TIFF, etc.)

Get Ready to Impress

People can’t believe it when I show them files and folders on the iPhone and when I open the files, rotate to landscape, click on Excel tabs, and zoom in and pan for a closer look. With AirSharing, the iPhone has truly become a computer in your pocket. Thanks for reading, John.