14 DAY TRIAL // The Internet is filled with iOS utilities designed to help you browse, view, backup and restore the content of your iPhone, iPad or iPod touch, but only a few are worth considering when it comes to buying one.
iLike is one of those few OS X applications that provides a long list of features which are meant to really help you backup, clean and optimize your iOS device, transfer pictures, apps, music and videos from your mobile device.
iLike comes with an intuitive interface, iOS content browser, backup features and cleaning capabilities.
The installation process is pretty straightforward: you just have to download the lightweight DMG image, mount it and copy iLike to your Mac’s Applications folder.
The demo version will clean up or transfer one file at a time, and comes with a narrow set of features and capabilities. However, the full version of iLike is available for $49.95 (€36) on the developer’s website.
On top of all presented features, it is important to mention that iLike is also light on your Mac’s resources. We witnessed a CPU load of up to 14-18%, while the RAM usage reached up to 200 MB, depending on the performed task. These values were obtained using the full version and might change according to your machine’s configuration.
The Looks
iLike features a familiar interface that resembles the one offered by iTunes. As a result, you will not have any difficulties in learning how to use the app.
The main window is divided in three different panels from which you can access different features of the application.
The top panel only allows you to activate or buy the app, while the left panel helps you access all the available tools and features.
The right panel is well designed and it complements the above-mentioned panel. The information displayed here changes according to the selected tab.
The Works
iLike is smooth-running and very easy to use. Once started, the application will scan the connected device for data and info.
You can choose what operation you want it to perform by selecting a tab from one of the five available in the left side panel: Main, Transfer, Clean, Backup and iTunes Backup Browser.
Thanks to the "iDevice Status" tab, you can view detailed information about your iPhone, Pad or iPod touch. Thus, you can have a look at the storage capacity, the software version, iOS build version, Device ID, serial number and, if it is an iPhone, the phone number.
You can check how your device’s space is used thanks to the graphic bar which displays, using different colors, the amount of MB occupied by music, apps, movies, photo and other files. Although it is not a new feature – it's also available in iTunes and other similar apps – this visual interpretation helps you more quickly and easily evaluate your storage space.
At the end of the scanning process, after about 5 to 8 minutes for an iPhone4 16 GB (it took longer on the first run and less on the second), iLike will display the detected number of issues affecting your device's performance and the disk space you can gain by cleaning the temp files, cache, cookie and other useless files.
The fix and cleaning process can take up to 3 minutes, especially if you have a large number of applications and your device hasn’t been cleaned for a long time. Unfortunately, iLike failed to use only one audio notification and "harassed" us with numerous voice alerts, one after another, as soon as the task was complete.
We were delighted to see a big performance improvement of the iOS device used in our test. We used an iPhone 4 running iOS 6.1.3, with more than 70 applications installed and not cleaned in over a year.
Furthermore, iLike enables you to view, open, browse, add, delete and export documents and files from your iOS device via the System Library tab. This includes your photos, app’s files, music and videos.
What’s more, via the Apps, Photos, Music and Video tabs you can effortlessly preview pictures, listen to music, play videos and export one or multiple files to your Mac’s hard disk.
The transfer process is smooth and fast, requiring only a couple of seconds to copy a file and, thanks to the built-in voice notification system, you will be alerted automatically when the app has managed to copy all the files to your Mac’s hard drive.
Moreover, while beginners can easily trust iLike with the cleaning process, more advanced users should take advantage of the Temp Files Cleaner, Cookie Cleaner, Cache Cleaner and Sync-failed Media tabs to manually remove temporary and unneeded files.
iLike also offers a backup tool that you can use to create a backup of your device and place it in the default iTunes Backup location. Most users will be interested in the Browser Backup tab as a result of its ability to access your iTunes’ backup file. This tool will prove its usefulness if you need to recover accidentally deleted photos, contacts, messages, notes, calendar entries, Twitter or Facebook list files or you simply want to view the call log.
The Good
In addition, iLike is also designed to make it as simple as possible to browse, preview, and transfer photos, music, videos and apps from your mobile device or iTunes backup file.
The Bad
The audio notification bug that we encountered during and after the fix and clean process could set you off.
Moreover, some users might find the user interface blunt and boring, with too many visual elements "borrowed" from iTunes.
The Truth
The long list of features and tools is more than enough for most users, while the cleaning and fix features definitely place iLike in front of its competitors.
Here are some snapshots of the application in action:
