iPhone question... reading emails/PDFs in Airplane Mode?

[WritersBlock]

I only recently got my iPhone, and I am still very much in the newbie stage with it. I want to be able to access PDFs on it. I know they can't be saved to it in the conventional way because of the file system. And I know you can theoretically use FileMarkMaker and read them in Safari. I say "theoretically" because any time I have more than 2 PDFs in my bookmarks, the iPhone Safari crashes. We're talking around 2MB each here.

The only other way I know to do it is to vew them as email attachments, so I'm in the process of mailing myself over 100 PDFs of French lessons that go with podcasts. The goal is to be able to listen to several of the podcasts and refer to the written lessons at the same time while on transatlantic flights, so the PDFs have to be saved to the iPhone. I seem to still be able to access downloaded emails (IMAP) in airplane mode, so I'm assuming this method will work on the flights as well as with data roaming turned off while in the States, as I want to avoid data roaming charges. (If anyone knows differently on this, please tell me!)

If there's an easier way to go about this whole process, I'd be very grateful to know. :D

[onehandle]

1. That's pretty much the only way I know how to do it, however iPhone OS 2.0 is about to come out.

It's free and comes with the "App Store" application.

I can guarantee you that someone will have an app that retains documents somehow on the iPhone itself.

[WritersBlock]

3. Thanks for responding.

I'm looking forward to the new OS; maybe it'll make things easier.

I wound up emailing a load of PDFs to myself; I can read them just fine in airplane mode (fingers still crossed). It takes a few seconds to get from iPod mode to mail mode, and the podcast is running while I'm bringing up the PDF, but I can live with that :D

[davidwparker]

2. French lesson podcasts?

[WritersBlock]

4. Yup.. several free ones out there.

The audio part, at least. I've only found one so far in which the PDFs are also free.

http://frenchecole.libsyn.com/ (free vocabulary sheets to download as well as podcasts) The early lessons are for kids, but they're beginning French, so they work :D

Do a quick googlage of "french podcast" or something similar, and you'll find several. Or do like I did and go through the iTunes store and subscribe to them that way. They're free.

The BBC also has something that looks interesting. Interactive Flash videos, from the look of them, but I've only just run across them today:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/languages/french/mafrance/