14 DAY TRIAL // Media sharing service TransMedia plans to do what most companies in the industry are aiming to do, which is to finally put an end to the iPhone's increasing popularity by providing a solution that could turn any phone into a device similar to Apple's handset.
The company is releasing Glide Sync and Glide Mobile software for Mac users, thus making desktop files available across different operating systems and devices.
This basically means that Glide gives supported phones music and video playback capabilities comparable to those of a video iPod or the iPhone. What makes it different is that the files are streamed from Glide's hosted service instead of being stored on the mobile phone itself. Glide has been available for Windows users since December and now, with the release of the Mac version, users that have two different operating systems at work and at home will be able to access their files from either one of them.
"Mac users will be able to access all of their Macintosh files, whether they're documents, photos, music, videos, contacts, calendars, bookmarks, from their cell phones," says TransMedia chairman and CEO Donald Leka. "Effectively, we're turning every major cell phone on the market into more than an iPhone, before the iPhone comes out. From that phone, not only will you be able to access everything, but you will also have significant capabilities to edit, manipulate, and create files on that phone and then have it reverse synchronize back to your Mac."
While the company claims that this will turn any mobile phone into an iPhone, there's something they definitely won't be able to do, and that is surpass the iPhone's popularity. Regardless of whether they, or other companies will come up with a better, more functional product, at least for the time being, it takes will take a lot of effort to steal the spotlight from the iPhone.
As the company says, Glide will not match the iPhone in terms of elegance or interface but it does offer potential access to more than the iPhone's announced 8GB storage capacity will allow. As opposed to the iPhone that will become available three months from now, the Glide is already available on any mobile carrier with Internet access (not just At&t).