It’s here, Dropbox have released an app for the iPhone & iPod Touch. I have written several posts about dropbox now, and the more I use it the more and more I find it useful and this just adds to the argument. The beauty of Dropbox is that it creates a folder on all of you’re linked computers and anything that you keep in this folder will automatically be updated on you’re web account and any other computers that you have installed and authorised Dropbox to work on.

So back to the iPhone app! When you launch the application for the first time, you get a little intoductory PDF to look at which runs you through the ‘good to know’s’ of the application. After this you are prompted to input you’re dropbox log-in details then you’re phone will automatically reach out to the dropbox servers and bring back down icons for all of the files and folders that are currently in you’re dropbox folder.

For files like presentations, word documents, photos, PDF’s and so on, you simply tap on the representative icon and viola the file loads and you have a full screen and very legible copy of the document to read. Very handy for viewing files that you need on the spur of the moment or when you have left your laptop behind.

One of the other things that I find great about the dropbox app for the iPhone is the ability to shoot/choose existing photos & videos (for those of you with a 3GS) and upload these to you’re dropbox folder. This of course sync’s back down to any of the other computers you have linked. This is a god send for getting photos back to the computer rather than dealing with the time taken up to connect you’re phone and wait for it to sync etc etc etc all just to get a photo.

The other beauty of this app is the ease in sharing files in you’re dropbox. When you are in one of the selected files and in viewing mode, simply tap on the envelope in the lower left corner and enter the email of the person you would like to share the folder with. This sends the person an email containing a link which is valid for 30 days from time of sending. When the link is clicked the recipient is taken to a browser link to view the file.

To me this is just one more reason to use Dropbox on my computers at home, and for anybody who does use Dropbox – if you own an iPhone or iPod Touch, you should definitely give this app a go!!! To get the application on you’re phone or get extra information about Dropbox you can visit their site here: getdropbox.com

Email

First and easiest is syncing your email. To do this you’re email provider needs to support what is called IMAP, generally they will tell you to set up your email programs with POP3. The difference here is that POP3 is a system which downloads what is on your email server and stores a copy on your local system – this is excellent if you only use one computer. But throw in your mobile phone and your laptop on top of your desktop computer and you will be getting the same email showing as unread multiple times, and if you delete it on one computer it will still be on the other devices same with your sent emails – frustrating!!.

The beauty of using IMAP based email is that every-time your computer or mobile phone is told to check your mail it will only show you what is currently on the email systems server, so think of it this way: somebody sends you an email > it goes to your email providers central computer > your computer or phone checks to see if there is any mail > it pulls down a copy of this and shows you your mail > all the time keeping a message on the emails providers computers. If you make a change such as delete or move it to another folder the action is mimicked on the email systems server. Therefore the next time one of your other devices checks for new mail it will see exactly what is on the email server and refresh all of your devices.

Setting up an IMAP email is hard to document because every internet/email service provider is set up a different way therefore there isn’t one set way to do this, generally speaking by navigating through your suppliers support pages and by using google to search you will generally be able to find a way to set this up. If your primary email is done through a service like Gmail, Hotmail, Yahoo etc this makes it easier because by nature these are already an IMAP way of managing your email just navigate to their websites and they will give you details on how to set this up for your email program.

Files

Mobile Me provides a service called iDisk, which is like your own portion of disk space on Apples servers. This means it appears as a local disk on your computers however it can be accessed by any computer you give access to or via the web. The nice thing about this is that if you work between multiple computers you know just what it is like to go out one day and have forgotten to copy the file across. My solution to this was to use a service called Dropbox. I have blogged about this previously so won’t go into too much depth, but for free with this service you get 2GB worth of space which I find is adequate for files and some pictures. You can pay for a larger disk space if you want to. This service provides the same function that I mentioned earlier about providing an online central place to store files, but the beauty of dropbox is that whatever you put in your dropbox folder on one computer is automatically synced up to the dropbox server and back down to any other computer that you have installed dropbox on!

Calendar

Another great feature of Mobile Me is the ability to synchronize your calendars across different machines and you’re iPhones, Mobile Me does a really great job of this by pushing any changes made up to their servers and back down to your other devices to be updated. There is one great way to achieve this for free and this is with Google Calendar.

Once you have a google account you have full access to this feature for free, the process is fairly simple however I won’t discuss it here for the fact that it is so in-depth, however if this interests you check out the links posted below to find out how to set this up. Below are the links to platforms and programs it is available with:

• Click here for links to set up Calendar
• Works with Mozilla Sunbird
• Apple iCal & iPhone
• Microsoft Outlook
• Windows Mobile
• Blackberry

Contacts

Google really provides so many great services at no charge and due to the nature of how your contacts with Google are managed – that is in the ‘cloud’, it allows them to offer this free synchronizing services for contacts as well. So like with the Calendar when you add or update a contact on your computer or phone, it will update this on every device enabled to do so. Again the explanation of how to do this is to in depth for me to cover here but if you would like to enable this as well check out the link here > Google Sync Services

Basically what I was after is something that would allow me to have a folder on each computer that would automatically keep the most up to date version of every file that I work on, on both computers. This is where I came across Dropbox! I downloaded the application and installed it, basically you sign up and get the option to select the free account or choice to two tiers of paid accounts. I selected the free one as I don’t require any more than 2GB worth of space to be synched. The install is quick and easy, after setting it all up on your initial machine you then install on the second computer, log in and viola, your files automatically start to sync up between your two computers. Now the great thing about this is that it automatically knows when something has been edited and copies the updates of the file to your other computers. Another thing I really liked is that if you accidentally delete something, you can log into the web based account and retrieve what you just accidentally deleted.

The other excellent thing about Dropbox is the ability to share folders/files/photos with friends and family. All you have to do is select the option to make that file or folder public, you can select who you want to have access to it by sending them an email or just note down the link that it provides you and anybody can view the selected files when they navigate to the link.

After having a hell of a time fiddling with Live Mesh to try and sync, it was a relief to find Dropbox and discover that it did exactly what I wanted – the first time & hassle free, I would seriously suggest giving it a go if you frequently use multiple computers or share files with others.