HomePipe is a free iPhone app that offers you secure access – from anywhere – to ALL of your data stored at home with just about zero setup needed.
There are a number of iPhone apps that offer us ways to get to our data stored on home PCs, but none that I can think of that do so for free and with nearly zero setup required to make things work, and still provide secure access.
That is what’s on offer with HomePipe. I’ve been trying the app out for several days now, and though it has some notable flaws and places where it needs some polishing, I am very impressed overall. This is an app that should appeal to a whole lot of iPhone users. Hit the jump for some of the reasons why I think so
What Does It Do?
Provides secure access to all of the data on your home computers (and even network attached storage) – from your iPhone or iPod Touch, or any web browser.
You can do things like view files and folders of all types, download documents for storage within the app on the iPhone, select a photo or file and email it straight from within the app, and create new folders on your home machines and add images from your iPhone’s photo library to them.
The security architecture for the service is very similar to what is used by services like GoToMyPC and LogMeIn. It requires zero configuration on home routers; no port forwarding setup at all – as it uses SSL and ports that are already open.
Setup is very easy. Here’s how it works:
- Install the iPhone app.
- Sign up for a free account, which can be done on a web browser or via the app itself. It’s free and all that is needed to create an account is an email address and password – no major prying or profiling.
- Download the free desktop companion app for Windows or Mac from the homepipe.net site.
That’s it – from there on you just fire up the app and do whatever you need to do with your home data. Even before you sign up, there’s a test drive option – where you can work with the app using HomePipes test labs.
*** The desktop agent needs to be running in order for connections to work. By default HomePipe shares everything under your primary user account on your home machine. I worked with it with a Mac and the iPhone – so it has access by default to everything under my /Patrick directory. If you need to create new shares higher up the directory structure, you can do so by logging into HomePipe from a web browser.
What Does It Do Well / What Are Its Advantages?
It is free. The app is free, the service is free.
There’s no storage limit as with services like Dropbox that sync your data to the cloud. HomePipe makes use of your existing machines and home storage.
The iPhone app is intended to be all about ‘having all your stuff with you, with no storage limits and no need to move your content around‘. The app does just that.
Navigation within the app is pretty straightforward – and it’s easy to browse your way around various folders and types of data on your home machines.
It’s also very easy to create a new folder back on a home machine, and add pictures to it.
PDFs are displayed fairly well, as are image files.
There is also a $2.99 Premium version of the app. The only difference is that the Premium version has no ads – there are no feature or capabilities differences, and the ads in the free version are slimline and not intrusive at all.
What’s Not So Good?
The ‘agent’ for Mac does not act like an agent. When I see the word agent I expect to run as a service. This one does not, it runs as an app and hence has to be open in order for connections with the iPhone to work. This is not made clear within the setup instructions. Perhaps this is cleaner on a Windows machine. Here’s what the Mac app looks like:
If you don’t remember to keep the PC agent / app open and running, you’ll have no joy connecting. I found the app wouldn’t even let me work with the iPhone’s own Camera Roll when connectivity was not sound, which is odd.
Right now the app does not do music or video streaming. If you want to listen to a track or view a video from a home machine you have to wait on a download before a player launches. This is one of the developers’ top priorities for future updates to the app. The current plan is to have streaming added by the end of April.
The app’s UI is clumsy in some places. For instance, you cannot email an image directly from the screen where you view it (as you can in the Photos app). You have to be in Edit mode within a listing view to email files. Once you know this, it’s not a big deal – but it’s awkward nonetheless.
Images can be a little slow loading at times.
The only sharing option available at the moment is email. There are plans though to improve this a great deal – adding things like Twitter and Facebook support as well as the ability to share with family / friends / people in future updates.
I’d like to see the app have a password prompt – not just pop straight open to its main interface. This is an option that they’ll need to add I think.
I had a small number of occasions where the app seemed to hold open a past connection (a WiFi connection at home for example) and then refuse to connect nicely when I was out in 3G land – while popping up errors saying it problems resolving names.
This only occurred a couple of times though and each time the issue seemed to resolve itself after a few minutes. The devs are aware of this one as well.
Overall
HomePipe is a very good app. It’s a great concept and it’s pretty well executed (with a little need for polishing and some feature adds in future updates). It’s hard to argue with free, no storage limits, and nearly zero setup with this type of app.
It works very well over 3G and is perfect for those sort of ‘oh crap I forgot my file‘ moments when you’re out and about with your iPhone. If you just need to quickly email a document or picture to someone, this is much faster than using a VNC or RDP type remote access app.
This is one of those iPhone apps that is not only a keeper for me, but one I’ll strongly recommend to friends and anyone who’s using an iPhone – in fact I’ve already started, shwoing it off to a few other parents when I was picking up my daughter at school today.
You can find HomePipe in the App Store now, and it’s a free app (with the Premium, no ads, version available as well).
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TAGS: iphone apps, iPhone remote access apps
