Thank-you DigiDNA

Well I didn’t even last a week before blabbering about something iPhone. Ironically this is a post about an application that helps overcome one of the biggest downfalls of the Jesusphone.

FileAid is an iPhone application built by DigiDNA that allows you to transfer files from your PC to your phone essentially giving you usb memory card like storage, particularly appealing since I splurged and bought the 32 GB model.

This alone doesn’t really position FileAid as anything revolutionary as a number of applications allow you to transfer files from Mac, Linux and Windows via WiFi to the iPhone. The genius behind FileAid’s ying is its yang counterpart DiskAid.

DiskAid is a desktop application with support for Mac and Windows (sorry penguin lovers) that allows you to connect to your iPhone via a usb cable and transfer files on to your iPhone assuming you have FileAid installed. This becomes amazingly powerful if you are transferring GBs of data like I had to recently. As the transfer speed of the usb cable blows any WiFi speed out of the water and you only need consult physics to work that out.

the good

FileAid supports all the basic file formats you’d expect allowing you to view documents and even play iPhone supported media internally within the application. It also has a healthy number of options around security and these are accessible via the actual app and not hidden in the settings pane. During WiFi file transfer the iPhone is essentially an anonymous ftp server which is better for transfer speeds. At the moment FileAid a free download to your iPhone via the app store.

DiskAid has a clean interface both in the Mac and Windows version with clearly labelled buttons to allow you to intuitively perform tasks without seeking any help. It automatically detects when the iPhone is plugged in and makes it clear when you’re good to go and can start transferring files and has its own status bar to track progress. DiskAid is available for a free 14 day trial and can be purchased online from the DigiDNA online store for around $10.00.

the bad

FileAid has a number of views and while I might be using it for a specific task they seem unnecessary and more confusing than worthwhile. While I have no issue with the ‘folder’ view strangely the last option, I don’t see a use in sorting all the files on ‘File Type’, ‘Date’ or ‘Name’ particularly if you have a plethora of files as seeming them outside of their folder structure but in alphabetical order for example is plain confusing. I also found it annoying although I’ve come to accept it now that you needed to be in the ‘sharing help’ screen to connect to the iPhone over WiFi from either Mac or Windows.

DiskAid unfortunately requires iTunes to be installed to allow the USB file transfer and this adds to its overall footprint on the host machine.

and the ugly

For some reason FileAid and DiskAid both have different default paths so unless you see the setting in FileAid to ‘Use DiskAid folder instead of FileAid folder for FTP’ it can be frustrating trying to use usb and WiFi transfers in unison and although I solved it eventually I think it’s an ugly design decision. Another ugly side effect of using an anonymous ftp server for file transfer between the Mac and the iPhone is the Mac doesn’t have any simple out of the box anonymous ftp client so the developers suggest you download CyberDuck which is an annoying step if at a mates and wanting to grab a file quickly. Last but not least and I guess more of a criticism of Apples backup process but if you dump a large number of files on your iPhone and then sync with iTunes you’ll end up transferring all those files into a backup of your iPhone which really isn’t necessary.

At the end of the day besides some major short comings as much Apples fault as DigiDNA the FileAid/DiskAid combination provides the much needed usb file transfer feature, and is particularly powerful for large media files and install iso’s as long as you remember to transfer them to your primary machine before backing up your phone with iTunes.

I give it 7/10 and wonder if it is the best usb file transferring solution I’ll ever see on my non-jail broken iPhone ...