iPhone: A Productivity Tool?

With iDisk -- available as a free application at the App Store -- users can share files that are too big to e-mail. Once recipients are selected, iDisk sends an e-mail with a link to download the files. The app is one of several new features announced at the Worldwide Developers Conference in San Francisco this week.

While the app itself is free, it requires the user to have a $99 subscription to the MobileMe service. Once subscribed, users can view and share Microsoft Office or iWork '09 documents, PDFs, video files, etc., viewable in landscape or portrait mode. Public folders of other MobileMe members also can be accessed. Any recently viewed files do not need to be reloaded. For example, a document opened during the ride to the airport can be quickly opened and read from the airplane.

MobileMe has had its share of growing pains. Back in October, Apple updated the service, which uses push technology to keep a subscriber's Mac, iPhone, even PC in sync. In addition to the coming-soon iDisk feature, the new version of MobileMe on iPhone OS 3.0 brings search capability to iPhone e-mail, enabling search by sender, recipient, subject or all headers.

Of course, if those documents fall into the wrong hands because the iPhone is lost, Remote Wipe can initiate a process that will restore the iPhone to its factory settings. If the device is eventually retrieved -- the iPhone has a number of ways it can help an owner locate it -- e-mail, contacts and calendars can be restored via the MobileMe account.