How to Access Network Files From Your iPad

iPad is almost everything you need. It is a music player, an ebook reader, a smart browsing tool, a news reader and everything else, except that it is NOT a true blue computer and it won’t ever perform like one. You can’t even view the file structure in your iPad, let along viewing and accessing files from the network. Luckily, File Browser changed the game. Let us show you how.

Making the iPad practical

As an entertainment tool, iPad is excellent. But to get it to perform networking stuff, it failed miserably. It is not that the hardware sucked (in fact, the hardware is among the best in the market), it is just that Apple did not create the necessary software for it to do the tasks. This is where third party apps come in to fill the gap, and File Browser is one such useful app. It brings practical network and file access direct to your iPad for less than three bucks.

Installing and setting up FileBrowser

The installing of FileBrowser is the same as any other app. Just go to the AppStore and tap the “Install” button.

Setting it up is pretty easy too. While there are QuickGuide and Setup Documentation (both Mac and Windows versions, depending on the computer your connecting to), I have never read them and still able to get it connected. If I can do it, so can you too.

I installed the application and started right in. Click on “Menu -> Machines” button, and there’s the “+” button to start adding connections. Connecting to all of the other machines on my network was a snap, but remember that spelling counts here; if the name of the computer for the machine you’re connecting to isn’t exactly right, it won’t connect. This is the one place FileBrowser fails to live up to expectations for me… If you could browse network devices and just choose one, it would be a total lock, but adding machines could prove to be a bit annoying.

Streaming Video and Audio from Anywhere (On Your Network)

Once the machine name and login information is supplied, the connection is instantaneous, and this thing is fast! Now that you’re connected to another machine, you can browse the entire directory, including attached devices. You can copy to and from the other machines, or execute or stream files stored remotely.

Read that part again – you can execute or stream any file stored on any other device! That means you now have direct access from your iPad to the 250GB of BitTorrent movies you’ve been collecting for the last year. And we’re back to the iPad being… an entertainment device. You can also view, save and share photo collections quickly and easily, as showcased below.

Wrap-Up

Bottom line, this application has saved me more time and made my iPad use more enjoyable than any other software I’ve come across. It’s one of those essential utilities that you take for granted when you have it, but couldn’t live without. Do you have apps that are in a similar vein, or other ways of accessing your stuff from an iOS device? As always, let us know below!