Using your iPhone as a portable storage device or thumbdrive

The iPhone is this year’s hottest gadget, and with a list as long as of features it is a shock to some new iPhone owners that the device lacks the ability to use the device as a massive thumbdrive. With a minium of 8GB and max of 16Gb storage capasity definatly isnt the limiting factor. It would seem that this would be a corporate limitation that has stopped this feature, although it seems strange that this feature can be found on older modes of the iPod and iPod shuffle. It could be that they feel this would open up the device to hackers, although the rule with hacking is not if, but when (its only a matter of time till something get hacked). Read on to find out how to turn your iPhone into a thumbdrive.

One app however has been released on the Apple App store opening up this functionality to users. It’s name is Air Sharing and it’s free! The app has been made free for the first two weeks only, after which it will return to regular price of $6.99 USD. So get in quick and snap this up now even if your unsure if you need it, and check it out when you want. 

Air sharing supports Mac OS X, Windows and Linux. It works by using the Web DAV protocol, which is similar to FTP, to host a mini server on your iPhone allowing other devices such as your computer or laptop to add and delete files on your phone. I tested it out in Windows Vista and had a problem. Every time I would enter the web DAv info it would say “The folder you entered does not appear to be valid. Please choose another”. This was quickly sorted it out by downloading a patch for Vista that updates Web DAV.

How to setup Air Sharing in Vista:

1) Download Air Sharing and make sure its running on your iPhone

1) Click on the Computer icon in the start menu

2) Right click the Computer icon on the left and select “Add a Network Location”

3) Continue clicking next till you get to the below screen and enter your IP of your iPhone followed by the port number (8080). These detail can be easily found onthe bottom of the screen in Air Sharing. For example mine was “https://10.1.1.6:8080”.

4) Click next and add a name for the folder that your setting up, I just used iPhone.

5) Click on your computer icon in the start menu and you should then find an icon like the one shown below with the name iPhone. Just double click on that and your accesing your files on your phone.

**Notes**
– To interact with folders and files through this method you must right click and select your action instead of just clicking/double clicking.
– Make sure you download the patch for Vista or this will not work. It is not included with Vista SP1 

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  1. Pingback: Using your iPhone as a portable storage device or thumbdrive | Web 2.0 Design Blog

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