File storage and viewing apps for iPhone

Storing media like photos, music, and video on your iPhone is a snap: after all that's what the device was designed for. But when it comes to carrying around other types of documents, or files that aren't in your iTunes or iPhoto library, the iPhone falls woefully short. You can always send PDFs, Microsoft Word documents, and Excel spreadsheets to yourself, but since the Mail app lacks a search function, finding the one message with the file you want often means picking through long lists of e-mails.

A trio of worthwhile programs have sprung up to fill this void, allowing you to store and view documents of your choice on the iPhone or iPod touch. It's strictly a "look, don't touch affair," though, since the iPhone's software does not yet allow editing of these documents.

While each program takes a slightly different approach to getting files on your phone, all have their own strengths and weaknesses depending on what your intended uses are. All three applications require that your mobile device and computer be on the same Wi-Fi network in order to transfer files and all three have roughly similar performance, both in transferring and viewing files, except in the cases noted below.
Olive Toast Software's Files struck me as the most iPhone-like of the applications I tested. It works by running a WebDAV server that you can connect to from either Windows or OS X; once connected, you can copy files to it like any other remote server.

The status of the WebDAV server is denoted in Files by the color of a circle icon in the bottom left corner of the interface. (Green means on, red off, and orange no Wi-Fi network detected.). Tapping the icon lets you easily start or stop the server. The app's preferences, accessible via the gear icon in the top left, lets you set a username and password to prevent others from accessing your files, or enable guest access if you want others to be able to pass your documents around.

Files has a number of built-in features that make it a snap to use. For example, there's a magnifying glass icon that you can tap to bring up a Filter field: Type in a string, and it'll automatically show you only files whose name matches the characters you entered.

When you're viewing files, a handy toolbar at the bottom of the screen allows you to jump to the beginning or end of a document and also gives you access to one of Files's other handy features: bookmarks. You can add internal bookmarks to long documents and then jump to them later; Files will also remember where you left off reading in a multi-page file and start at that point if you open the file later.

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