MobileFiles Pro – Review
By App Type: Uncategorized
Our rating: 
By: MobileFiles Pro
Version #: 1.0.0
Date Released: 2008-12-23
Developer:
Price: 9.99
User Rating:
Loading...
I just love a well written app. When someone takes the time to make an app look nice and includes most of the functionality that I would want, it makes my heart glad. Mobilefiles Pro is just such an app. Before iphones, I was a Palm user and I guess you always miss what you used to have. Among other things, I missed being able to edit my Office files on my mobile device. With Air Sharing I could look, but that gets a bit frustrating the first time you want to jot one little change… That’s what MobileFiles Pro is for. MobileFiles Pro allows you to edit Office documents. Well, so far you can only edit your excel spreadsheets, but I imagine eventually you will be able to edit them all.
When looking at an excel file on the iphone, I have to admit that it can get a bit frustrating to view and edit on the little screen, but MobileFiles Pro does as good a job as any I’ve seen. The look is very similar to the windows version of excel and while it is much smaller it scrolls very quickly around the page, and includes the ability to zoom in and out to get the best view possible. If you turn it to landscape the app maximizes the viewable cells by getting rid of menus and frames. The program also allows you some minor formatting changes with the emphasis on number formatting. This is one area that I think might need a bit more work. For example, I like to center my text in the box and could not get that done. Interestingly, centered text which I imported stayed centered — I just could not center text that I entered. Overall using this app as mobile excel editor I was very pleased. In fact, I found myself at one point thinking I liked the mobile version better than the Windows one. Hardly ever happens, but it’s always a good sign. The thing I liked was how easy it was to add functions to the cells: summing, averaging, or even finding the standard deviation. When you click on the formula icon a very easy to use menu system appears showing the various uses for formulas. You can quickly find the formula you want as opposed to the windows version that can sometimes be hard to use.- maybe because it has more options. I could not, however, find any formula that I might need not present on the iphone version
MobileFiles can also view other file formats like word, power point, pdf, jpeg, mp3, and iwork, as well as saving any format I could find without being able to view it. When looking at this part of the program I couldn’t help but compare it against Air Sharing. To be honest, I think I liked MobileFiles’ interface a little better. However, at what really counts — transferring programs — Air Sharing was much better. I loaded an 8.7 meg file on both apps and it wasn’t even a contest. Air Sharing was done in a few seconds and MobileFiles took 2 and a half minutes. That’s a really long time when you are sitting and waiting. It did give me a progress bar which was some comfort as at least I knew it was doing something. Air sharing didn’t, but really didn’t need to. On the other hand, you can access or download your (or your friends) iDisk accounts on MobileFiles(if you have MobileMe), which you cannot do on Air Sharing.
This program has a very polished feel in everything it does. Menus are placed exactly where you would expect them, easy to understand and visually pleasing. I guess that’s what you get when you pay a little more for an app. MobileFiles Pro is certainly not cheap. At $9.99 it is in the highest-cost section of my iphone. For the longest time I would only get programs that were free. I’ve now started thinking about apps in terms of some other thing that I love that costs the same and then comparing them in my head. For example, a .99 app is a ‘candy bar’ app. (I love my snickers.) So MobileFiles Pro ends up as a ‘trip to Starbucks for the family’ app. If you use excel at work or make any spreadsheets at home (I do budgeting on one, for example) then this app is probably worth it, otherwise take the fam out to the mermaid and have a gingerbread latte for me.
Quick Take
Value: High
Would I Buy Again: Absolutely
Learning Curve: Low if you know Excel, High otherwise.
Who Is It For: People who use Excel.
What I Like: Very polished, easy to use, doubles as a mobile drive
What I Don’t: Very slow transfer speeds for large files
Final Statement: Very nice Excel editor. Can’t wait to see how they handle the other Office document types.
My Rating:
5/5
O U R T A K E . . .
