Last week I read an interesting article on the Dutch website iPhoneclub.nl about the application FileApp Pro. Let’s face it: USB-flashdrives are old – get lost and are most of the time not very secure. FileApp seems to solve a few issues I have with flashdrives and therefore I decided to test this application and write this review about it.

I need to say that this application requires a Wifi-network to manage your files on your PC or Mac. If you don’t have a wifi network (I for example don’t have a wifi network at my work), you can solve this by using Connectify. My colleague and good friend Remo wrote an extensive review about about Connectify. I’ve tested FileApp with a connection created by Connectify.

The Interface

When you download FileApp Pro on your iPhone and open the application you’ll see the main FileApp Pro interface.

User Interface

On the bottom of the screen there are 4 buttons to change the view of the files (and folders).
The most right button sorts the files from A-Z. The second button sorts the files based on date, The third button sorts the files on filetype and the most left button shows all the files and folders in a folder structure.

The folders-view can go into folders and back

Folder View

The edit button on the top left of the screen gives several options.

Select files or folders to edit

Select one or more files or folders and push the Arrow button to move, copy, ZIP or E-mail the selected items.
When pushing the “+ Button” you can choose to add a Folder or Add a Text File.

Select an edit mode (Move, Copy, ZIP or Email)

The three buttons on the top right are from left to right for refreshing the current view, Enabling the WIFI- sharing mode and to edit settings.

Transering files to the iPhone

When enabling the wif-sharing mode you can connect your Mac or PC to the FileApp Pro folder. Instructions on how you have to do this are directly available for the most used Operating Systems.
Basically you have to enable the “share-feature” of the FileApp pro application and go to a FTP location which is stored on your iPhone in the Windows Explorer (Or use Cyberduck when you’ve got a Mac). In this case I type ftp://192.168.2.216:2121 in the addres bar of Windows Explorer.

Sharing with FileApp Pro Step 1

Sharing with FileApp Pro Step 2

Sharing with FileApp Pro Step 3

Now you get to see the folder structure of FileApp Pro within the Windows Explorer

In this view it is possible to add folders and copy files and folders to this FTP-location. My own experiences with Windows Explorer as a FTP-client aren’t very well. Therefore I’d prefer a freeware application like FileZilla . I’ve tested FreeApp Pro with FileZilla and this works very well in my opinion.

FileZilla in combination with FileApp Pro

View Files

FileApp Pro is able to display a lot of filetypes. More information about this can be found on the website of the developer of FileApp Pro.
I tried several files and was positively surprised to see that not only PDF files, but also .docx (Word) files and even .pptx (PowerPoint) files are displayed really nice.

Also pictures uploaded to the FileApp Pro application can be displayed. Viewing options like a slideshow for pictures are also included.
I’ve tried to display an .avi file but this filetype sadly cannot be played by FileApp Pro. Other mediafiles like .mp3 or iPhone supporting Video files (standard iPhone formats : H.264, MPEG-4) are no problem at all for FileApp Pro.

Viewing PDF-document

View Images in SlideShow

Creating Files

FileApp Pro basically can create 2 types of files: Txt-files and Zip-files.

Txt files can be created by pushing the “edit”, then the “+” button and finally the “Add Text File” option. You need to enter the filename and choose the location where you want the file to be created. After doing this, you’re able to edit the textfile which was just created.

Add a text file

FileApp Pro can also create ZIP-files from multiple files on the FileApp Pro filesystem. This is extremely handy when you want to send attachments, but don’t want to send more than one attachment in your e-mail.

A ZIP-file can be created by pushing the “edit” button, selecting one or more files (or folders), pushing the arrow-button and select “ZIP”. The name of the zip-file should be entered, and all the files will be zipped into this file.

I was really impressed how well the zipping of the files and folders worked. – I was able to create a 43MB zip file within a few seconds. The zip-file contained several file-types like Mp3, Large Image files and PDF-documents.

Preferences

This application is really an application which positively exceeds in simpleness. A good example of this is the settings page. There are only a few available settings.

The Preferences Screen

First there is the section “Display Options”. In this section it is possible to show or hide the file extension, show or hide the file size and set the slideshow timer on 2, 3, 5, 10 or 20 seconds.

The other section is the “Sharing” section. In this section it is possible to set a sharing password. This enables you to set a FTP account and password, so that other users on the same Wi-Fi network don’t have immediate access to your files, if they enter your iPhone’s IP-address

The section “Security” lets you set a password for entering the application. When you loose your iPhone the data and files inside FileApp Pro are secured with a 4 digit access code.

The last setting is the “Advanced” section which includes the “Memory Management” option. This option has the possibility to change the memory management of the application in order to open larger files than normally. Setting the memory management option to “OFF” can imply that the application slows down drastically.

Memory Management

Concluding Thoughts and Wrap-up

I have a few likes and don’t likes for this application.

Likes:

• Seperated Storage on your iPhone – Which can be accessed easily without much technological knowledge.
• 4 different types of viewing your stored files, including a folder-view.
• Not a lot of overall settings but enough settings to protect your valuable data
• Versatile application to carry all your important files with you all the time.

Don’t likes:

• No warning when deleting folder in which files are stored – Files are deleted too.
• Impossible to share when opening the app and the iPhone has no wifi connection, even if wifi is picked up later.

Overall I think FileApp Pro is a great application as an alternative for an USB-flashdrive. Even better is that the application is free of charge during the next few days – so grab it here, while it’s free