Soonr goes 3.0: Revamps search, iPhone version
Soonr is releasing the third version of its service Wednesday with a redesigned Web site and updated iPhone application that brings more of its desktop functionality to mobile users.
On the desktop side, the site has been rearranged to put all of Soonr's collaborative features in one place. Things like past file edits, user comments, and permissions control are now in the same place. And you can quickly create a project and start adding files to it on your own, or with collaborators who will be alerted each time there's a new file, user comment, or a change.
However, many of the biggest changes remain on the mobile application, which the company says should fulfill most of the top requests users had when it originally came out. These include:
- A full-screen document viewer that can be pinched to zoom in and out of large, complex files like spreadsheets.
Streaming video. If you're opening up a supported video file it will play right on your phone.
Contact list integration, so you can send files to people on your phone's contact list, even if they're not a Soonr contact.
You can send and receive eFaxes from your phone if you have an eFax account set up.
The option to create and move around folders, so you can reorganize everything you have saved on the service when you're out of the office. You can even upload files from your phone.
The updated dashboard divides up projects and site activity into different tabs.
(Credit: Soonr)To help sort through everything the service now has a search engine that indexes not just the names of your files, but what's inside them. This works on both the mobile and desktop versions on supported file types; So if you remember a small snippet of a Word document, it will be able to pull it up out of hundreds, or thousands in your account.
One thing that's not coming with this version is the capability to make edits to files from your phone. Creator Martin Frid-Nielsen tells me it's on the road map, and is on track for a future release, but it's not quite ready yet. It's definitely the one thing that keeps this service from being a true replacement for the Web version, since any changes or fixes to your work must be done when you're back on a real machine.
See also: Box.net updates its search to go inside your files
Josh Lowensohn writes for Webware.com, CNET's blog about Web applications and services. E-mail Josh, or follow him on Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/Josh. 
