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Dropbox on iPad

Update 4/14/2010: I see this post is getting a lot of hits.  Be sure to check a follow-on post on even a better way to link the iPad and Dropbox.

It was no surprise my favorite app, Evernote is very useful on the iPad.  What I didn't expect is that my second favorite app, Dropbox would be useful too on the iPad.

I use Dropbox to share files with my family, and with a collaboration team I work with every week.  Almost everyone who my wife or I have drawn into using Dropbox for a collaborative project, end up using it a lot personally and pushing it out to their friends.  That is the very epitome of Freemium.

I wasn't quite sure how that would work on an Apple product.  The iPhone, and iPad do not use filenames generally in Jobs' efforts to keep things simple.

The free Dropbox app for the iPad just works.  Once installed, you give it your Dropbox credentials (username and password) and then you see all your files.

If you touch an MP4 file, the video plays.  If you touch a PDF file you see the file.

The quality isn't the same as you see in the dedicated Video app or web browser for the PDF, but it is useful.

Dropbox makes it very easy to send files to your iPad, or to a friend's iPad if you and they have a shared Dropbox file folder.  And any file in your Dropbox is available to all your computers.

Shameless Plug : if you sign up for your free Dropbox account through this link, Dropbox adds 256 megabytes to my account.  It has no downsides for you.  Thank you.
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Comments

  1. Drew CoffmanApril 10, 2010 at 8:39 PM

    This article seems to imply that there is an iPad native build of the app, but there isn't yet. Hopefully soon!

    ReplyDelete
  2. MarkApril 11, 2010 at 8:52 AM

    Good note Drew. I should have pointed that out. I have something new I found that uses Dropbox awesomely. Hope to write it up later today.

    ReplyDelete
  3. UnknownApril 13, 2010 at 9:22 AM

    How can I get a doc at dropbox to open at Papers? (I know is Apple's fault, not Dropbox's)

    ReplyDelete
  4. MarkApril 13, 2010 at 10:41 AM

    Kafun, I don't own Papers, but looking their forum I found the link below. So perhaps you can. You definitely can access Dropbox from GoodReader (see my post from yesterday on that)

    http://mekentosj.com/papers/forum15/viewtopic.php?id=3798

    ReplyDelete

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