For the geeky, sharing files with the world or other devices is all done via the FTP that you've got for your website or blog. It involves a stack of complicated codes, faffing around with FTP software and generally an interest in computers and the way the Internet works to get it to go.?For the rest of us, there is dropbox.

Available for the Mac and PC (the iPhone has an app, and access though a mobile page is also offered) the concept is that it is a centralised folder that you have on all your computers or devices that allows you to automatically see what is in that folder be it on your work or home computer.

Sign up for an account, install the software and you can then instantly share documents, photos -pretty much all files - as long as they are in the that Dropbox folder.?Within the folder itself can be further folders and better still you can give public or selected access to those folders if you want.

What it means for example is that if you save all your documents to that folder whenever you make a change and then save it, it is automatically updated on all your computers rather than just the one you are working on. In turn this means the hassle of transferring it to a USB drive or CD to then take home or in to the office doesn't exist.

Clever huh?

On the Mac the whole system is as if it isn't there. In fact the only way you'll know you've got it installed is the appearance of a Dropbox icon on the menu bar at the top of the screen and a folder that you can drop stuff into on your desktop.

Clicking on the icon in the menu bar gives you direct access to your Dropbox folder, tells you how much storage you've got left (in percentage form) and what the recently changed files are. Unfortunately it doesn't change colour to show you that a file has been changed - something that would have been nice if you were working with others on a number of files - but it's no deal breaker.

While the system is likely to help you if work from home or need to share photos with the family across different computers, where we can really see the success is in the ability to share folders with others.

A quick invite to a folder and companies could easy share work projects without having to email large files around. In our tests we were able to share large (100MB +) documents within the team easily and quickly (based on internet connection).

If you aren't fussed about private access to certain people you've invited there is a "Public" folder that allows you to dump files in and then dish out a URL to anyone. (As an aside, PR reading this review, this is a perfect way to share pictures and press releases with journalists.)

As we mentioned there is an iPhone app as well that allows you to access all the files on the system. We had no trouble viewing word documents or images and you can upload from the iPhone as well, handy if you need to share a picture without docking or emailing the photo.

Of course you might not be at your iPhone or your computer with the software installed. Don't panic, Dropbox appears to have thought of that too.?Connected to the whole system is a simple website that once logged in allows you to view files you've got stored, view recent activity, and organise your sharing options.

It's basic, but it does mean that if you are at a random computer, be it in an internet caf? or someone's office you can still access the files.

It's free, so how can the company survive??

Well it comes down to the amount of storage you want. The basic or standard package, which is free, gives you 2GB of storage.?That storage is upgradable either via paying cash or signing up friends (although that will only give you a maximum further 1GB).

The quickest way to get more storage space is to pay. Part with $8.99 a month and you can upgrade that storage quota to 50GB, opt for $19.99 a month and it jumps to the Pro 100 account that gives you, you guessed it 100GB of online storage to store your stuff, more than enough for most people.

Verdict:

Dropbox is a very clever, but incredibly simple, sharing solution that we can see saving a lot of time for those that use multiple computers or just have the need to access certain files from anywhere without having to carry a USB thumb drive around.

Yes you've worked out how to set up a network storage drive on your home Wi-Fi network a system like this isn't that useful (around the home) but your Time Capsule or NAS drive isn't going to let your work computer play or your iPhone for that matter.

The free 2GB threshold is likely to be more than enough for basic file transfer and we would have no issue recommending this to you and everyone you know.

Storage and sharing files might be boring, but this makes it incredibly easy.

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Tags: Software Online Storage Dropbox Mac software PC software iPhone apps Mobile phone apps

Dropbox originally appeared on http://www.pocket-lint.com on Mon, 16 Nov 2009 14:37:27 +0000

CoPilot is one of many GPS apps for the iPhone, but at half the price of the rest of the pack is this app any less feature rich, or are they just looking to sell you a good deal? We get in the car and find out.

At ?26 for the UK maps, ?49.99 for the European maps or ?20.99 for the US maps, the CoPilot offering is cheap. Not Google Maps Navigation cheap (it's free on Android 2 handsets in the US), but compared to TomTom which is ?59.99, a considerable saving.

Power up the app and you are presented with a menu system that is straightforward but comprehensive. As you would expect you get Destination, My places (like favourites) the chance to change settings, and handily the mode you are travelling - i.e., on foot, by car, bike, RV, or motorbike - with the directions and view mode (2D or 3D) changing accordingly.?

Opting for Destination gives you the ability to punch in the address via an onscreen keyboard. There is support for 7-digit postcodes or you can grab it out of your contacts if there is an address to grab.?The software also lets you pick a Point of Interest, either nearby, in a different city or on your route, and failing that you can just pick somewhere on a map or punch in the coordinates (Long/Latt or OS) if you are being particularly geeky (handy for geocaching).?My Places, as you might expect, lets you store your most commonly used addresses in case you forget how to get to work or get home. It's also the area you can find your recent trips, as you'd expect.?

What you might not have expected to find here is live services such as traffic, weather and friends, that uses your data connection to update the maps on the fly. Obviously the weather is a bit pointless if you are just looking at your location (look out of the window), but it does let you see weather for where you are going as well so you know to pack a coat or a t-shirt.

Not content with just offering you traffic data, the software will also help you spot speed cameras, or safety alerts as it likes to call them, as well as warning you if you are breaking the speed limit for a certain bit of road (you can turn it off).?We also like the Quick Stop feature that allows you to program in a detour to a petrol station or greasy spoon and then get you back on your route afterwards.

For those who want to use the iPhone's iPod functionality there is also the ability to load in tracks from your collection to be played at the same time. It's a work-around for the fact that the iPhone can't multitask, and it comes across as just that, but it's better than nothing. Voice directions are then played over the music rather than it cutting out - showing this is an after-thought rather than a fully integrated feature.

Get past the multitude of options and the maps are clearly laid out with little to offend. Points of Interest are shown by little icons, the app works in both landscape and portrait modes to take advantage of the iPhone's aspect ratio and the colour can be changed at night to best suit your preferences.

In use and the app is as good as the TomTom and Navigon offerings we've tried, with the software telling you when to turn, etc.?Where it lacks against TomTom's solution is things like IQ routes (which is very handy), however at over half the price we think that most will be able to live without that feature.

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Verdict:

CoPilot 8 for iPhone, like the Android and Windows Mobile versions is incredibly feature-packed considering the price.

As with the other satnav solutions for the iPhone, we would recommend you look for a windscreen cradle and a charging option as the software will eat through your phone's battery fairly quickly.

The only real grumble we had was that the walking mode was a bit lacklustre, but then you've got Google Maps for that.

If you need a satnav, but only on occasion, then at ?26 you can't really go wrong.

Tags: Phones Mobile phone apps Car And GPS ALK Technologies CoPilot 8 for iPhone GPS iPhone apps

CoPilot Live 8 for iPhone originally appeared on http://www.pocket-lint.com on Mon, 16 Nov 2009 14:21:23 +0000

GPS units like those made by TomTom have a number of key selling points that make a dedicated device king of the crop when it comes to getting from A to B and beyond.

A large screen, good GPS receiver, the ability to search for addresses and points of interest all at the press of a button. However as the iPhone promises all of the above can it really save you having to worry about a dedicated unit?

Before you think that the app is going to be 59p or the like, it's not. This is a full blown GPS software package and because of that it will set you back ?59.99 for the UK and Ireland maps app and ?79.99 for maps of Western Europe. You get the application on your iPhone to use as you will in your car, but you don't get the optional iPhone cradle you might have seen.

Structured like the TomTom software on the company's dedicated units, the main menu screen provides you with a number of navigation and setup options. Settings include enabling sound, night colours, 2D map, Manage favourites and other not so exciting options. Yes you can change the voice, language and tone, but TomTom hasn't bundled anything out of the ordinary here. UK still gets Jane and Tim, although opting for Ken from Australia or Katrina from New Zealand will give you that holiday feeling.

The settings also allow you change distance units, route favourites like Toll Roads and whether to avoid unpaved roads. Get past the settings and you get a number of features: you can call a POI, browse the map as you would a Google Map and plan a route ahead of schedule.

The Advanced Planning mode is incredibly handy as using IQ routes (included) you can work out how long a journey will take at a specific time before you even get in the car.

For those in the dark as to what IQ routes is, it's basically TomTom's massive database of traffic and scheduled estimated journey times. Rather than saying it will take you the same length of time to cross London at 5pm on a Friday and 2pm on a Sunday, it knows that the former will involve heavy traffic and gives you a travel time accordingly.

Before you press the route button you are given a series of choices from: fastest, shortest, avoid motorways, walking, bicycle, limited speed and choosing gives you different results.

Driving from Tower Bridge in London to Edinburgh Castle leaving at 7am will take you 7 hours 15 minutes for example while walking will take you considerably longer, 122 hours.

Of course the main function of the TomTom for iPhone app isn't Advanced Planning but day-to-day navigation and for that there is the Navigate To... menu option. Here you can punch in your Address, Recent Destinations, Points of Interest, Postcode, Point on Map as well as Contact from your Contacts Book on the phone.

Full postcode support is provided allowing for quick address entry and it was the most common way for us to enter an address in our tests. Entering information into the system is all down via the touchscreen interface, and the application works in both portrait and landscape modes making it easy to enter information.

So the data entry is easy, the software offers plenty of features, surely this will replace the dedicated device market? Not so fast.

The software does work very well and we had no qualms with the software, the GPS signal or the performance of the device. The TomTom for iPhone app was quick to start and quick to find a GPS signal in our tests. Likewise traffic updates while driving were as good as a dedicated machine.

So what's the catch? The main one is that you've got to find somewhere to perch it on your dashboard, the second is running the GPS on the iPhone is a power hungry experience. The iPhone battery is poor as it is, let alone if you plan to drive for 2 hours on top of that. Just don't expect to get much use out of your phone at the other end if you've stuck to the battery.

Of course there is a solution. TomTom just happen to make a cradle, which for an additional ?99.99 will offer you a place to put your iPhone, will boost the GPS signal and offer you a speaker to boost the audio as well.

But here is the rub? ?99 plus the ?59 for the app means that before you know it you've spent ?158 for a device that is as good as a dedicated device, but not a dedicated device. You'll still have the cradle to hide and you'll still be able to get cheaper solutions, even from TomTom themselves.

Verdict:

The TomTom for iPhone application works and works well, the problem is that by the time you buy either the official TomTom cradle or a cradle and car charging kit you'll be better off getting the newly announced TomTom Start for just over ?119.

Good, but unless you really need, and or want to have the TomTom software with you wherever you go on your phone and not just hidden in your glove compartment, then there are cheaper solutions out there.

Read our TomTom Car Kit for iPhone review here.

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Tags: Phones Mobile phone apps TomTom for iPhone TomTom Apple iPhone Car And GPS

TomTom for iPhone originally appeared on http://www.pocket-lint.com on Tue, 13 Oct 2009 12:00:00 +0100

We all know the iPhone camera isn't the best, we also know that chances are you take pictures that are good, but maybe need a little help on the improving side. Yep, there is an app for that. But has the imaging software company cracked it, or is this one Adobe app you shouldn't bother to download??

Available for the iPhone, the app is currently free, however isn't available in other countries like the UK. You can however get it on Windows Phone handsets.

Fire it up and you are presented with three main options: edit a photo, view your online Photoshop.com gallery and upload your images to the service.

Opt for the editing process and you can either select a photo from your camera roll or take a fresh photo to then edit.?Once you've got your photo loaded you can then start manipulating it. There are a plethora of options from cropping (1:1, 3:4, 4:3 ratios or custom) to rotating your image to flipping horizontally or vertically.

But it's not just about cropping out the random dude in your photo, Exposure, Saturation, Tint and Black & White are also available to you. All the editing features are controlled via your finger simply by moving it from one side of the screen to the other. The editing process is incredibly easy and luckily Adobe has thought to add a numbering or colouring system to each editing filter so you can achieve the same settings each time on different pictures. You can't punch that in as a number, but at least you can replicate it.

All that's good, but where would a photo editor be without the ability to create crazy image effects? Here you get a range of them. Two - Sketch and Soft Focus - will actually change the image drastically, with the Sketch option making it look like a drawing. The other photo effects are based on colour washes, most of which are fun rather than useful. We can't really see you wanting to "Rainbow" or "Pop" many pictures (see images for example), however used on the right photo and Black & White, Warm Vintage, and Vignette Blur could be very handy.

Once you've created and edited your work of art you can then save it to your Camera Roll as a new image or chose to upload it to Photoshop.com, Adobe's picture service.?As you would expect the app gives you access to that space so you can view images stored on the service and you get 2GB free with the option to add more storage at a price.

Uploading is simple but limited as you can only upload your image to the Photoshop.com service. There is no social networking functionality, no Flickr support, no Facebook support, no nothing. It's a shame because if you want to do upload anywhere else you have to come out of that app and then start up another app (i.e., Facebook) to get the job done. It's no biggie, but it would have been nice to have been able to do it from the one application.

With live access to your Photoshop.com galleries you can then bore the world with your favourite images from the palm of your hand and you can play albums and images as a slideshow, but you can't play it back to music or anything.

On the PC or Mac you can access the site via a standard browser.

Verdict:

The Photoshop Mobile for iPhone app is impressive when it comes to editing your images, especially as it is free.

The big catch is that it is isolated to the one service, something that makes this more of an advert for Photoshop.com rather than an all powerful imaging app that will make you dump all the others you've downloaded on your phone.

If that doesn't bother you and you just want a basic image editor with some fun features then you might as well give it a spin, after all it's not going to cost you anything.

Tags: Phones Mobile phone apps Adobe Apple iPhone iPhone apps Photoshop Mobile for iPhone Cameras Photoshop Mobile for iPhone

Adobe Photoshop.com Mobile for iPhone originally appeared on http://www.pocket-lint.com on Mon, 12 Oct 2009 04:30:46 +0100

Okay, admit it, you've got an iPhone and you tweet. There, now that we've got that out in the open, lets move on. If you are already tweeting chances are you are using a dedicated twitter app, probably the original Tweetie or maybe Tweetdeck or the other one that's now called Echofon.

While there are free twitter apps available, if you want to manage your tweets like the pro you are you've got to stump up the cash for it. Tweetie 2 is $2.99 or ?1.79 depending on where you are in the world. But is it really worth the same as a couple of pints of milk? We get tweeting to find out.

The biggest rub, and we will get this out of the way quickly, is that even if you've bought Tweetie, you are going to have to pay once more. There is no VIP access, no cheap upgrade route. You are dead to them unless you pay cold hard cash. Of course Tweetie (the original) still works and will continue to work, you just won't get the new features.

Legacy issues aside, and at ?1.79 you really shouldn't get too hung up on this, firing up the app brings you the ability to manage multiple twitter personalities, check you Twitter streams and a whole lot more.

Account setup is as easy as remembering your username and password and once you've set-up your account(s) you are done. Likewise switching between them is simple.

Within the application there are overriding settings that can be controlled, such as the date format, and font size, but also more relevant things like which image, video, URL and read later services to use. All the main ones are here including a couple that you probably aren't so aware of, giving you a wide scope in getting the service you are most happy with. Better still if you can't find the one you want you can create a custom setting for it anyway.

Taking things even further there is collection of advanced settings as well, going to the extremes of letting you decide how you want it to handle retweets (-@user or via@user). It's intense, but still simple.

But you haven't downloaded this just for the settings options, you want to tweet, and tweet it will let you.

Like Tweetie the layout is very similar. Out are the "speech bubbles", in is a simple timeline that is easy to read. Speed has been drastically improved while your previous tweets will also be cached for offline reading - a big annoyance of the original Tweetie. Your feeds come in and your place remains where it was for you to scroll up through your timeline.

New tweets, replies, direct messages are highlighted at the bottom of the screen on the nav bar, however you don't get numbers like Echofon.

Dragging the timeline down towards you scrolls up and rather than a refresh button, all you have to do is drag it down to see if there is more chatter. It's a nice design feature.

Find a tweet that interests you and a quick scroll to the right brings up a series of "hidden" options: reply, link details, user details, mark as favourite or do something with it like retweet, quote, post link to, mail or even translate with Google.

Press compose and you get a standard looking tweet input page. New here is a character counter, which pressing gives you the chance to add images, take a picture, geotag, search those you follow, see popular hashtags and auto shrink URLs. It is by far the most comprehensive offering we've seen on an iPhone Twitter client. There is also a draft mode for when you're on the Tube or subway without connection.

But Twitter isn't just about you. It's about the timeline. Here you get to search your timeline (very handy) as well as Twitter names of?those you follow.

You can of course also search Twitter as a whole, and then save those searches for access later. Trends are here too, updating live, and more intriguingly the ability to search nearby your location so you can see your neighbours tweeting around you. I am not sure I really want to see what someone down the street is saying, but I can see it would be helpful tracking mates in a nearby bar playing Foursquare.

Verdict:

Get past the gripe that previous users will have to pay again and we are really impressed here. Tweetie used to be our default iPhone app of choice, however having to remember to load up the tweets before hitting the Subway was a real bind. Here that issue is gone, and in place a shiny new fast Twitter app appears.

There are some really cool clever features to be found and Tweetie 2's makers Atebits has managed to somehow pack this app with so many features but not made it complicated in the process. The result is an app that once again wins a place in our hearts.

If you are an iPhone twitterholic, this is money well spent.

Related links:

• Link - Atebits.com

Tags: Phones Mobile phone apps iPhone apps Tweetie 2 tweetie atebits Social networking iPhone Twitter

Tweetie 2 - iPhone originally appeared on http://www.pocket-lint.com on Sat, 10 Oct 2009 05:24:04 +0100