Dropbox app launched: Review and tips to make the most of it

Dropbox app finally here

A few weeks ago, I wrote an article about ways to get MobileMe functionality for free on your iPhone. My solution for emulating iDisk functionality was Dropbox, however at the time it was lacking an all-important feature: an iPhone app. Well, that has been taken care of with the long-awaited release of the official Dropbox iPhone app [iTunes Link] which hit the store yesterday. Here, I’m going to take a look at it and also give you tips on making the most of it.

For those who have not come across Dropbox before, Dropbox is a free service which allows you to sync files of any kind across multiple computers with multiple operating systems. Any files you add to your Dropbox folder (or subfolders) are uploaded to the Dropbox ‘cloud’, and then pushed out to any other computers associated with the same login. Where it differs from iDisk is that the files are stored locally on each computer as well as in the cloud, so when you want to access them there is no waiting around for the files to download. There is also a powerful undelete function and the ability to restore to an earlier version of your files.

Browsing files

The iPhone app is free and works much as you might expect. Upon logging in, you are presented with a list of the files and folders in your root Dropbox folder in alphabetical order. The usual iPhone conventions are put to use in terms of the interface so you’ll feel right at home. Clicking on a file will open it and display it on the screen, clicking the envelope icon in the bottom left will compose an email whereby you can send a link to that particular file, and pressing the ‘star’ icon in the bottom centre will allow you to save the file as ‘favourite’. This saves the file locally to your iPhone for quick and data-free retrieval. The app allows you to use upto 2GB of space on your iPhone for this purpose.

Documents viewer

On the top right of the screen when navigating your folders you will see a camera icon. Pressing this will allow you to take a new photo or video and upload it to the current folder, or upload an existing photo / video from your camera roll. This is incredibly useful – a completely wireless way of transferring photos, videos and screenshots to your computer without messing around with emailing and downloading attachments etc. This is going to be a godsend for us here at iPhonewzealand for the screenshot functionality alone. In the past we’d have to take our screenshots, connect up via USB, transfer them etc., now we need only upload via Dropbox and within mere seconds the file is ready and waiting on our computers.

One of the main things I use dropbox for is storing important documents – insurance certificates, passport copies, scans of purchase receipts, that sort of thing. In the past, this has entailed a fairly tedious process of leaving said document near my computer until I have time (or can be bothered) to scan it, correct the image where necessary, and save it to Dropbox. By combining Dropbox with another excellent iPhone app called Jotnot [iTunes link], however, this process can be mostly eliminated.

Jotnot's 'scanning' process

Jotnot is a paid app (currently $4.19) which allows you to take a photo of a receipt or document and ‘convert’ it to a scanned copy. You simply take your snap, mark the four corners of the document, then hit process. Jotnot then extrapolates the document from the picture, straightens it up, cleans up any shadowing, and leaves it looking like a pretty convincing scan. You can then choose to save the processed image as a ‘photo’ in your camera roll or as a PDF. Now all that’s left to do is open up your Dropbox app and upload it. Hey presto, your document is safely stored without even touching your scanner or your computer. The results are pretty good – as you’ll see in the example above I took a picture of my receipt in fairly low-light conditions and at an odd angle, so I think it did a fairly good job of tidying it up. See the gallery link below for the full-resolution result.

There are a few things I’d add to a wishlist of future updates for the Dropbox app. First, I’d like to see folders fixed to the top of the list of files, rather than mixed within the files in their alphabetical position. Second, I’d like to see the ability to undelete files added to the app. You do have the ability to delete, and although you could undo any accidental undeletes the next time you visit the Dropbox website, it would be nice to have the function on the app all the same. Finally, for the sake of security, I’d like to see the option to require the username and password each time you access the app. Right now, you enter it once and the app is fully accessible from there on without any security challenge. I’d hate for my kids to get hold of my iPhone and start deleting stuff!

All-in-all this is a great, free alternative to iDisk. If you don’t have a Dropbox account you can set one up from within the app itself very easily so get going!

– Dropbox App

– Jotnot App