The iPhone has been credited with bringing a whole lot of new users to the Apple fold, people who beforehand were unfamiliar with the sacred Way Of The Mac.  If they’re anything like me, those people have large media libraries full of different types of files: videos in mpeg, divx, WMV and more, audio saved as mp3, WMA and ac3.  Transferring that to the iPhone not only demands a whole lot of storage space – it’s not difficult to fill up even the 8GB model – but running everything through iTunes and spending time waiting for it to convert. 

Glide Mobile think that they’ve got the answer – they’ve just added WMA support to their iPhone client, allowing you to stream content either from your home PC or from their online storage locker.

To call Glide a streaming media company is something of a disservice; they advertise themselves as an “Online Desktop”, a synchronised web-accessible combination of both offsite storage and online applications such as word processing, media and email.

A free account gives you 2GB of storage on their servers, while for an annual fee of $49.95 you get an extra 10GB.  The system can be used on normal PCs or Macs, or on a number of compatible cellphones, with Glide Mobile automatically compressing audio/video according to the speed of the data connection you’re using.  Still, they recommend you stick with WiFi for the best results on your iPhone.

If you’re looking for a way to enjoy different types of media without needing to re-encode them – or even just want to preview some content from someone else while you’re away from home and your iPhone dock – it might be worth checking Glide out.  As ever, let us know in the comments how you get on!