First look at Live Mesh on the iPhone!
While yesterday saw greater availability of Microsoft's Windows Live Mesh technical preview, I was grousing about a few things: one, no mobile access and two, no Mac access. To a small degree, the first issue is beginning to go away thanks a mobile-formatted Mesh site. The folks at LiveSide.net caught wind of the basic entry point found at http://m.mesh.com and they've already hit it up on a Windows Mobile device. Marching to a different drum beat, I hit it just now my iPhone and sure enough, I'm in!
Using the mobile browser, I can see my Live Desktop folders as well as all of their contents; the Live Desktop is essentially the server where docs are stored and synced between devices. On my iPhone, I can see the files that replicated on my UMPC and another device (to be named later), so I can effectively get at my data from any of these devices or any web browser. Very nice. You can also view the News function of Live Mesh: this is the history of what actions you've taken: added folders, fiiles, inivited others to a folder, etc... Again, the functionality is limited but does show promise. Right now I can download any pics I have stored in the Mesh, invite others to a shared folder and create new folders; all of coure which replicated across devices in my Mesh.
It's an early look of course, but mobile access is one of the biggest gaps right now so it's good to see. Now about that other gap I mentioned... you'll have to wait a bit for the big news there.
Update: I noticed that I can't yet add files to my Mesh from my iPhone; something that Windows Mobile devices can do, at least with photos.
I just tried this on my Nokia N95-3. Sadly, I receive the error "Web: no gateway reply".
Posted by: matthew bennett | July 17, 2008 at 02:40 PM
My bad, Matthew. It's a .com, not a .net URL. I just fixed the link so hopefully it works for you!
Posted by: Kevin C. Tofel | July 17, 2008 at 02:49 PM
You might want to change it to .com instead of .net. That worked for me.
Posted by: Lance | July 17, 2008 at 02:52 PM
Yeah, well... Garbage in, Garbage out. This story said .net, so I tried .net.
Great! It works on my N95-3. I was able to view my folders, change folders, and download an MP3.
Good stuff from M$!
Posted by: matthew bennett | July 17, 2008 at 03:20 PM
James, if you change the user agent in safari (or any browser that supports it) you can access the mobile version of the site from a Mac.
Posted by: Steve | July 17, 2008 at 06:32 PM
Oops, meant Kevin.
Posted by: Steve | July 17, 2008 at 06:33 PM
FYI,apparently if you have 2.0 on your iPhone and use the AOL AIM software you can have effectively FREE text messaging. Nice trick according to CNetTV. I am sure AT&T loves this.
Posted by: Andy Petty | July 17, 2008 at 07:34 PM
Hi,
Is there any way to change the Iphone's user agent string? Sites like applicationmanager.gov refuse access to Safari users and Iphone refuses installation of other browsers. Could I change the Iphone user agent string to imitate IE, Firefox, or Opera, like a regular desktop user? If so, how?
Thanks.
-Ken
Posted by: Ken | August 29, 2008 at 05:26 PM