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Control your Android device from your computer with AirDroid

Lewis Leong

Lewis Leong

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AirDroid iconAirDroid for Android is one of the most creative apps I’ve seen in a while. Wireless file transfer applications are nothing new but AirDroid is much more than that. The Android app is only half of the equation as users will need a web browser to control their phones wirelessly. Once you navigate to the web interface, you’ll be shocked as to how fleshed out the interface is. It looks like a full fledged operating system for your Android device, all running within your browser.

There are windows to manage files, widgets that tell you the status of your device, and even virtual desktops to multitask. On the bottom you’ll see a task bar with your wireless connection information, battery charge, and which windows you have open. This is just barely scratching the surface of what AirDroid can do. Let’s take a look at some of its more impressive features.

Control your Android device from your computer with AirDroid

Remember, this article is part of our awesome series for Android users, Basic Tips for Android.

To get started with AirDroid, download the app on your Android device and navigate to web.airdroid.com. The website will display a QR code and a box to put in a password. Open up the application on your Android device and scan the QR code and you’ll be instantly taken to the AirDroid desktop. If your Android device doesn’t have a camera, enter in the password that the AirDroid app gives you instead.

airdroid

Once connected, your desktop will have icons for all the different features that you can access on your Android device. Beyond controlling files and media, AirDroid will let you view your text messages, call log, contacts, and will even let you take screen shots.

airdroid desktop

One of the things that surprised me is AirDroid’s ability to read and send text messages from within the browser. Note that AirDroid doesn’t require root access at all! Text messages show up in a neat list with avatars of your contacts for quick viewing. You can start a new message or continue chatting by popping out a contact’s chat window.

airdroid windows

Browsing files and media are a pleasure. Files are handled within windows and you can select files to download or upload. You can even drag and drop files. Photos show up with big thumbnails and video can even play within the web browser using QuickTime. All of this means that you will need a quick router if you will be sending big files over the network.

airdroid phone status

I am pretty enamored by AirDroid but it’s not perfect. One thing I noticed when using AirDroid is that when my phone went to sleep the connection would break, pausing file transfers. File transfers would resume just find once I woke my phone back up again but this is less than ideal when transferring over large files. I hope AirDroid’s developers, SAND STUDIO, will add a feature within the Android app to prevent the phone sleeping.

I’m impressed by AirDroid’s feature set and stability, especially since it’s still in beta. Give AirDroid a try and let me know what you think in the comments.

Lewis Leong

Lewis Leong

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