Avatron’s Air Share Pro for iPad, iPhone or iPod Touch

Technorati Tags: Innovation, Computer, Internet, Blog, Digital, iPad, Apple

Gather Tags: Innovation, Computer, Internet, Blog, Digital, iPad, Apple
Vendor Tags: Avatron, Air Sharing Pro, Air Display

I wrote last month about a product from Avatron Software called “Air Display”. They have another product that I have found to be equally as useful, if not more. I thought I should write a quick blog about the “Air Sharing Pro” product that I find very helpful. I give this software a 5 star review, as it really performs well, and now it works with almost any type of host you need to get your files downloaded from (or uploaded to).


Simply put, this app makes your iPad like a web-based file server. It is the most powerful way to view your documents on the go! As an added bonus, this software also works on your iPhone or iPod Touch, making it into a mini-repository for your critical files. Since this software works for those 3 types of Apple devices, I will collectively refer to them as “iDevices”.


Another way to look at this is that Air Sharing Pro creates a wireless hard disk for your systems to connect to. You can mount your iPhone, iPad or iPod Touch (iDevices) as a wireless drive on a Mac, Windows, or Linux computer (on the same Wi-Fi network), or connect from any web browser. Then simply drag-drop files between your computer and Air Sharing Pro. If you are development (software) minded, you can also host a powerful web server with WebDAV (just like the iDisk), without any special software required on your computer (except on Windows XP, which requires free NetDrive app). There is some base security available to you, a local passcode, remote access password as well as an optional Public folder.

The types of files you can access and even display is impressive. The following list is what is supported:

1. iWork (Pages, Numbers, Keynote)
2. Microsoft Office (Word, Excel, PowerPoint), subject to iPhone compatibility
3. Web Archive (web pages downloaded by Safari)
4. HTML web page
5. PDF (even password-protected and large documents)
6. Adobe Illustrator (saved as PDF Compatible)
7. RTF (Rich Text Format) and RTFD (with embedded images)
8. Plain text (many character encodings)
9. Source code (most popular programming and scripting languages), with color-coded formatting
10. Movies, Audio, and Images (standard iPhone formats).

In addition to those supported file types, you can also print your files directly from the device, as well as it connects to another Air Sharing Pro iDevice. Here are some of the file operations you can perform with this software on your Air Sharing Pro iDevice:

1. Move, Copy, Paste, Rename, Delete, New Folder
2. Zip and Unzip (supports password-protected archives)
3. Print (via Mac OS X 10.5+ or Linux with Printer Sharing)
4. Email attachments
5. Save and Get images to and from Photos
6. Download from URL (copy link from Safari, paste into Air Sharing Pro)

The above graphic is a good view as to what types of Air Sharing Pro “file servers” are available to you.

The setup of Air Sharing Pro is easy. You simply purchase the app from the iTunes AppStore, and get it loaded onto your iDevice. Simply ensure that the iDevice is on the same wireless network as your PC or Macintosh system. Click on the “wireless fan” icon at the bottom of the “Air Sharing Pro” application and note the IP address(es) available to you. Enter that address into your PC or Macintosh web browser and voila! You can now upload and download files from your iDevice.


I have found that the products from Avatron are reliable. They are a good software company with good products that immediately add value to your computing environment.

 

Air Share Logo from iTunes Store

“Use your iPad as a file share for a variety of computer hosts!”