PDF Redaer Pro – Truth be told, there are several iPhone applications that are designed to be .pdf readers. Depending on your line of work and line of interest, the ability to upload and view .pdf files on your iPhone or iPod touch could prove useful in many ways. I have little experience myself with .pdf readers for iPhone, but recently took a gander at PDF Reader Pro by YUYAO Mobile Software.

Since the App Store user reviews were not all that favorable, I decided to take as objective an approach as possible to PDF Reader Pro while keeping in mind I had no immediate need to use it.

The initial syncing of .pdf files was a breeze, but I have to say the files I uploaded were small in size. Still, for a few pages, it was a quick and painless process.

Your computer and iPhone (or iTouch) must be on the same Wi-Fi network for syncing to work. What few .pdf files I had saved on my computer were almost instantaneously transferred and while I’m sure larger files would have taken longer, at least there was no confusion as to how to achieve the actual transfer. Simply click the wi-fi icon on the bottom left of the screen and enter the IP address into your computer’s browswer.

Once your .pdf file is on your device, you can go in to the PDF Reader Pro app and view it any time. There is a single touch navigation feature for zooming in and out and changing pages, but the overall viewing is kind of difficult. There is an option to change from fast speed view to “hight” quality, which is clearly meant to be “high” quality, but it’s not a difference I noticed either way. Other features the developer mentions include the ability to copy and paste, but I cannot get that to happen for the life of me. I figured copy and paste would work the same as it does with OS 3.0 and that simply touching and holding would engage the tool from within the document, but I was wrong. Instead, there is an “edit” function that presents the copy and paste options, but nothing seems to happen when I tap them.

The PDF Reader Pro “how to” doesn’t give any further explanation for how to use PDF Reader Pro except for how to get the file from your computer to your device in the first place. I suppose for further help, the next step would be to contact the developer directly. I have no reason to want to jump through those hoops to figure out how to copy and paste from PDF Reader Pro to say, an email, so I can only assume that if the function exists, there must be a way to make it work.

Since I don’t have any .pdf books saved on my computer, I also can’t attest to how quickly the transfer of one to PDF Reader Pro would be. I do know that if the experience of viewing my 3-page document is any indication, I doubt very seriously if I would be using it to read a book. However, I don’t think PDF Reader Pro was designed to be a book viewer, but rather a way to take .pdf files with you for browsing. There could be instances where you have a report or other important .pdf file on your computer and need to reference something within it on the go. In this case, PDF Reader Pro should work out OK and since it’s in the low price range for such apps, could even be deemed a decent value. However for higher performance and additional functions I might still be tempted to check out some of the others.

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category: Business