Documents by Readdle: Free and easy content management for iPad
Readdle is a development firm that has made a name for itself with apps like Scanner Pro (US$6.99) and PDF Expert ($9.99) that make creation and markup of documents a snap. Now the company has released Documents by Readdle (free), a significant update to the earlier ReaddleDocs app that is essentially a completely new app.
The iPad app is, according to the company, about 80 percent new code. The company launched the app as an update to ReaddleDocs, as that app currently has over 230,000 existing users and this will make their transition to the new app as painless as possible.
Several of us at TUAW had an opportunity to beta test Documents by Readdle, and it is a polished and speedy app. Documents combines a fast document viewer with a media player and file manager. There's a built-in browser, so you can view web pages or other online documents within the app, then save them in folders on the device or in the cloud.
%Gallery-176531%
Once saved, you can call up the documents at any time, annotate them and share them easily. But Documents by Readdle not only handles PDFs and Office documents, it also lets you look at and store images, play music or watch videos.
Documents by Readdle syncs with Dropbox, Box and iCloud, but works with many other cloud storage solutions. In fact, it's hard to find a service that doesn't work with Documents: I tested it with a WebDAV server on a web host, Google Drive and FTP and SFTP servers with no problems, and it also works with CloudMe, Storegate, Filesanywhere, MyDisk.se, SkyDrive, Office 365 Sharepoint and SugarSync.
Since Documents by Readdle is free, I don't think it's going to be a "hard sell." Go out and download it to give it a try. If you're not sure that you'll need the app, download it anyway; you'll be amazed at how quickly you start moving documents into this well-implemented app.
