The GoFlex Media app does nothing to your files, and it has no built-in viewers, as some apps do. That means Seagate totally relies on Apple's iOS for file handling, and you can view a file only if it's already supported within iOS.

Seagate says it has optimized the app to handle video playback, and I found that the app does take care of the task well--with some peculiarities. You have to preformat your videos, or select videos that you bought from iTunes. Oddly, my iTunes-purchased, protected content could play, but only through the Web browser. At least that way I had audio available through the iPad's built-in speaker. My iPhone 4 videos played just fine in the app, but I couldn't get audio via the speaker; when I played the same video via the Web-browser interface, audio played just fine. Streaming worked surprisingly well for both high-definition (720p) and standard-definition video; I tried live-action and animation, and both types played fairly smoothly, albeit not perfectly (I noticed minor pixelation and macroblocking in some scenes).

To me, the frustrations with GoFlex Media seem to be basic design and development issues that lead to poor app behavior. Another example: When you're in the individual folders, you must first press a button (whose purpose is unclear) to get little checkboxes overlaid atop your images or documents; from there, you can choose whether to select individual files, select all files, play all files (in the case of music, photos, and videos), or download a file locally. Why not just allow you direct access, eliminating that extra, initial button press?

The app was also slow to reconnect to the drive after disconnection, and it was slow to display new content; sometimes, it would spin and spin and spin while trying to represent content, and it would have stayed in that state had I not clicked into a specific category.

Many more examples of poor design involve the photo component, which clearly is restricted in function. Once you open a photo, you can't move among your other images with basic next and back swipes, nor can you zoom in to a photo or do anything with it (at least in Apple's Photo Roll, you can tap an image to copy it, choose to e-mail or print an image, or select it as your new wallpaper). Photo icons display in an image thumbnail, but the aspect ratio is mangled, resulting in squashed-looking images. You can initiate a slideshow by selecting images and choosing 'Play all', but the result is crude: You have no control over the slideshow settings or transitions.