ReaddleDocs is the type of application that makes you shake your head in amazement at how advanced cell phone technology is nowadays.  It is one of the most-feature rich apps I have come across in the app store.  It offers not only a number of unique features, but it also does other features that have already been done before, and does them better.

In short, ReaddleDocs is a documents reader and management tool for your iPhone that supports a mind-boggling number of file formats.  It allows you to pull documents from your E-mail accounts, computer, and other online storage accounts and store them on your iPhone for easy viewing and management.

Getting files into ReaddleDocs

To start enjoying ReaddleDocs, you ‘ll want to get some files on your phone.  There are many ways to go about this.  I won ‘t go into detail on how to perform each action (partly because ReaddleDocs comes with an in-depth user guide), but I have tried a few different methods, and each one of them was easy as pie.

Perhaps the easiest way is to use the built-in web browser within ReaddleDocs.  You can type in any web address and save the entire page as either an HTML document or a web archive.  Or, if you ‘re in Safari on your iPhone and you see a document you want to save, tap the address bar and add an ‘r ‘ before the address and tap Go.  ReaddleDocs will then launch and prompt you to save the file.

You can also link your E-mail accounts to the app and save attachments that way.  You just enter your login information and, voila, all of your E-mails and folders are there, much like Apple ‘s mail app.  You can save the E-mail itself and/or any attachments that came with the E-mail.

I found it really useful and easy to link the app with my MacBook (Windows is supported as well).  You just add your iPhone as a server (again, instructions on how to do this come with the app), and you ‘ll be able to transfer files from ReaddleDocs to your computer and vice versa.  If ReaddleDocs cannot open or view a particular file format, it can still store it in memory.  This is especially useful because it turns your iPhone into a wireless flash drive.  This will probably end up being the most useful feature for me.  I absolutely love it.

ReaddleDocs can also link up with any WebDAV supported storage.  Some popular names include MobileMe, Google Docs, Box.Net, and Dropbox.  I personally used Dropbox, and the interaction between it and ReaddleDocs is smooth as can be.  The one advantage ReaddleDocs has over the standard Dropbox app is that you can upload files from ReaddleDocs to your Dropbox.  This is another feature I love.

Managing files within ReaddleDocs

Now that you have a bunch of files in ReaddleDocs, things may start to look a bit cluttered.  No worries.  ReaddleDocs makes it easy to manage your files.  Within the Documents menu, tap the edit icon.  Now you ‘ll be able to create and delete folder and delete, rename, move, mail, or zip any of your documents.  Many of the actions are also doable en masse, meaning you can delete or move a bunch of documents at a time.

You can also search your documents, or sort them by name, type, date, and size.

Viewing files within ReaddleDocs

As I mentioned above, ReaddleDocs supports many different file formats.  Because this is such an important component of the app, I ‘m going to copy and paste the supported document types right from the ReaddleDocs user guide:

Microsoft Office: Word, Excel, Powerpoint (.doc/.docx, .xls/.xlsx, .ppt/.pptx)

Apple iWorks including iWorks ’09: Pages, Numbers, Keynote(.pages, .keynote, .numbers).

Portable document format (.PDF)

Web pages (.html, .htm)

Rich text documents (.rtf, rtfdnew)

Text files (.txt)

Fiction book (.fb2)

Plucker e-books (.pdb)

Images (.jpeg, .jpg, .gif, .png. .tiff)

Media formats (mp3, mp4, 3gp, mov, mpv)

As you can see, there is no shortage of supported file types.  Audio opens within the standard Quicktime screen we ‘ve all grown to know and love.  Pictures, however, open within ReaddleDocs, and enable you to E-mail or save them to the camera roll on your iPhone.

Perhaps ReaddleDocs crowning achievement in regards to document viewing is its PDF viewer.  It allows you to search the entire document, create bookmarks within the document, and also enables clickable links.

The one puzzling feature about the app is its ‘Print ‘ option.  It prompts you to install something else to print documents, but I didn ‘t see anything regarding this feature in the user guide, so I did not get a chance to check it out.

Settings

ReaddleDocs does offer a few customizable options.  You can password-protect the app, enable or disable Wi-Fi Drive (portable flash drive), choose the default save folder for the web browser, edit how you want to view files (ReaddleDocs or iPhone OS PDF viewer, etc.), and edit some auto-open options.

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This is, without a doubt, one of the deepest apps I have seen in the App Store.  It can do so much and do it all so easily.  If you are looking for an easy and fun way to manage, view, and share documents with your iPhone, you can ‘t go wrong with ReaddleDocs.  I highly recommend you check it out.

ReaddleDocs is available now in the App Store for $4.99.

*** Readdle provided a promo code to Just Another iPhone Blog for the review of ReaddleDocs.  For more information regarding our site ‘s review policies, please see the ‘About ‘ page. ***

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