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Alternatives to AirDrop between iPhone and Mac
Like a lot of you, one of the first things I did when I had both OS X Mavericks and iOS 7 (in beta form) on my devices was to try AirDrop. I mean, it's been in OS X for a while and it was added to iOS 7, so of course you're going to be able to zap files back and forth between your iPhone and Mac, right? <crickets> Yeah, that was a major disappointment, and something we'll probably have to wait for Apple to add to the next versions of OS X and iOS. In the meantime, there are several third-party solutions you can use to give you the ability to "AirDrop" your files from a mobile device to your desktop. DeskConnect (free) Not only does it have a great price -- free -- but it also works very well. You'll need to create a free account with DeskConnect, so apparently they're using some sort of online caching of information being sent between your devices. On the iOS device, DeskConnect displays an easily understandable interface that has four buttons: send photo, send clipboard, send websites and send documents. Documents are stored for 30 days, so you'll always have recourse if you sent something between devices and then accidentally deleted it. The share clipboard feature must be turned on (it's not a default setting), but works great. Instashare (US$2.99 for OS X, free iOS app with ads or $0.99 without ads) This is a solution that both Shawn "Doc Rock" Boyd and I use, since he turned me onto this pair of apps a while back. Installing Instashare on your Mac adds an AirDrop-like icon to your menu bar. Click on that icon to bring up a blank window upon which you can drop files and folders, and they're immediately sent to your "Trusted Devices." However, the app was supposed to allow sending of clipped text between devices, and I could never get that to work... and the online help files are less than helpful. Pastebot ($3.99 for iOS, free Mac companion app) Pastebot's been out for a while, more as a "clipboard manager" for iOS than anything else. However, developer Tapbots created an OS X companion app called Pastebot Sync that runs in the background on your Mac and lets you send text and images back and forth between devices. Neither of the Pastebot apps has been updated lately, but they both still work with no issues. Do you have any other suggestions for cross-platform AirDrop alternatives? If so, let us know in the comments.
iOS 7 AirDrop: Information sharing without a bump
AirDrop is a Wi-Fi ad-hoc file sharing service, built into iOS 7. It enables information to be quickly sent to another iOS device. While AirDrop isn't perfect yet, it's certainly making sharing files between iOS devices a lot easier than sending them through Mail. Think of it as an "electronic sneakernet", where two parties just agree to share a file, bring up an AirDrop dialog, and then happily fling files at each other. Now this capability is built into iOS 7 making transferring files as simple as tapping a few buttons. How to use AirDrop AirDrop doesn't require you to "bump" your phone or tablet against another device like so many Android phones do. Instead, you easily share files with any device that's on the same Wi-Fi network with you that's nearby and has AirDrop active.* Imagine you are at a meeting with 5 other people who are all on devices running iOS 7 and want to share a Notes document containing a meeting agenda with all of those folks. Here's how you do it: Make sure that everyone at the meeting has AirDrop set up so that they're discoverable to everyone. This is done by bringing up Control Center with a swipe from the bottom of the iOS screen, then tapping on AirDrop and selecting "Everyone". Pop into Notes, tap on the note you wish to share, and then tap the share button. When the share sheet appears, an icon appears for everyone on the same Wi-Fi network who has made their iOS device discoverable. Tap the icon to begin sending. The recipient is notified of your file transfer with a small dialog that asks them to either decline or accept the transfer. If they accept, the file is transferred and usually opened in the appropriate app (i.e., Notes). If they decline the transfer, the sender sees the word "declined" below the "face" of the person who they sent the file to. If you only want to make your iOS device discoverable by friends, family and co-workers, use Control Center to change your settings to "Contacts Only." AirDrop-compatible apps At the present time, AirDrop works with the following built-in iOS apps: Notes Contacts (send a business card to another user) Voice Memos Photos (AirDrop lets you preview the photo before accepting it) Safari Passbook Maps Podcasts I anticipate that more developers will catch on to the utility of being able to send files to nearby users. It's a bit of surprise that Apple hasn't updated the iWork suite for iOS to be able to take advantage of AirDrop, but it wouldn't surprise me to see an update soon that makes it possible to beam Keynote presentations and Pages documents to other users. Compatibility So, this sounds pretty good, huh? Well, don't get too excited -- AirDrop doesn't work on all iOS devices. The devices that are AirDrop-savvy are the iPhone 5/5s/5c, 4th generation iPad, iPad mini, and 5th generation iPod touch. What other capability is AirDrop lacking? It can't send or receive files to or from a Mac. Apple introduced AirDrop for OS X two years ago with the release of Mac OS X 10.7 Lion. To transfer files between Mac and iOS device, you're still going to need a third-party app. I'm a big fan of Instashare (free, US$0.99 in-app purchase to remove ads), which is a cross-platform set of applications that's perfect for sending most file types between your Mac and iOS device. Mike Rose recently took a look at another app -- DeskConnect (free) -- that also offers iOS to Mac transfers, but appears at this time to be much less robust in terms of the apps and file types it supports than Instashare. I'd much rather see Apple "Sherlock" (build a third-party app's functionality into the OS) Instashare's capabilities so we are able to zap files hither and yon right out of the box instead of having to install and run a third-party app. Conclusion I hope that future updates, both to iOS 7 and to third-party apps, make AirDrop even more useful to the Apple world. Right now, it's a great implementation of something that has been needed in iOS since the first iPhone appeared. If developers embrace the ability to share more information through AirDrop, it could well turn out to be one of the most useful features ever created for iOS. *Note: AirDrop does not require that the sharing devices be on the same WiFi network; it uses Bluetooth and peer-to-peer WiFi to transfer files. We apologize for the error.
Share between devices painlessly with Instashare
There will come a time when you would like to simply transfer a file from one iOS device to another or to a Mac; it's inevitable. When the time arises, you will discover as most of us already have that the process is not as straightforward as one would think, considering how powerful these devices are. The most common methods used up to this point have been emailing oneself, cloud services like iCloud or Dropbox, file sync with the USB cable and iTunes or pleading with the always capricious Camera Connection Kit. Thankfully the developers at TwoManShow have developed a wonderful app to take the pain out of cross device file transfers with their Instashare app. Instashare for iOS is like AirDrop for mobile devices as it quickly and painlessly copies any file from one device to another over WiFi or Bluetooth without a direct connection to the internet. Instashare for OSX currently in beta, adds the ability to send files to and from your Mac and your iOS devices. Both versions of Instashare are free; however, the iOS version is ad-supported and the ads can be removed by a $0.99 in-app purchase. Instashare for Android and Windows are currently in development.
Friday Favorite: Use Instashare to easily share files between your Mac and iPhone
Instashare recently landed in the iOS App Store and it addresses a common problem encountered by many Apple users -- how do you transfer a file quickly and easily between your iOS devices and your Mac? Instashare is as easy to setup as it is to use. All you have to do is install the iOS app on your iPhone and the OS X app on your Mac. The OS X version sits in your menu bar and lets you drag and drop files you want to transfer to your iPhone. As soon as you drop a file, an alert appears on your iPhone asking you if you want to accept the file. Once you receive a file on your iOS device, you can preview it in the Instashare app or open it with a third-party app. On the reverse side, you can use the Instashare app to select a photo from your camera roll or a file on your iPhone and send it to your Mac. Transferred files are automatically saved to the Downloads folder, but you can select a different folder in the settings. You can transfer images, PDFs, MP3 files and more. Instashre isn't just an iPhone to Mac transfer tool. You can also send files between other local iPhones or iPod touches. It'll also work on the iPad, but you have to install it as an iPhone-native app and then scale it up. Instashare is available for free from the iOS App Store. There is a US$0.99 in-app purchase that'll remove the ads from the app. The OS X version is available for free from Instashare's website.
