MobileMe, iDisk and my iPad

I’m a big fan of Apple’s MobileMe service – as someone wanting to keep calendars, contacts and bookmarks in sync across multiple devices I find it an invaluable tool and – at the risk of sounding all fanboi – well worth the annual subscription.

One of the first things I did to make my iPad part of my ‘digital life’ was to add my MobileMe account to it, not only did this bring my data to the device but it also ensured any appointment or contact I add to it is instantly available on my iPhone or MacBook – and all without messing around with cables.

The other benefit of the service is the iDisk storage ‘area’ which allows you to store files in the cloud – a major advantage when you may want to access them on different devices.

The ‘access anywhere’ nature of the services, and the ability to have files accessible without tying up physical disk space, are two of the reasons I opted for the 16GB iPad rather than a more expensive, larger models.

iPhone and iPod Touch users have long been able to access iDisk with a handy app but, like a number of apps designed for those devices, when I installed it on the iPad the experience was a little underwhelming – stretching pixels to fill the iPad screen never really works for me.

Thankfully Apple have just updated the iDisk app, adding native iPad support, now a simple tap of an app or a click of my MacBook’s trackpad (on a Mac laptop or desktop computer the iDisk service integrates with the operating system’s Finder tool) gives me instant access to documents and files across four separate devices.

Obviously not everyone who owns a Mac or iDevice subscribes to Mobile Me, but for me the integration of services across multiple – and most importantly – natively compatible devices is one of the things that makes Apple’s products so attractive.

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