Sometimes a Good Old Wire Works Best

One of the most common complaints I hear from people who are new to using Apple products, especially the iPad and iPhone, is their difficulty in getting things in and out of the machines.  Most of these people are coming from the Windows world and the domain of Steve Jobs can be vexing at first.  While once initiated, most of these users find that cloud technology can handle most anything they want to do, there are times when a good old wired connection really is easier and faster.

Perhaps some history will help explain.  Jobs and Apple have always been somewhat iconoclastic when it came to importing and exporting files to and from their devices.  In 1998 Apple introduced the iMac.  This machine was the first to be made without a floppy drive and used only a CD-ROM drive.  So iMac users who were used to sharing files, pictures and games with friends by sharing floppy disks could no longer do so.  Back then, Apple was a bit ahead of the technology curve.  Many iMac users ended up buying “unapproved” USB floppy drives.  Today Apple and most other technology manufactures rely on the cloud and wireless technology to provide storage and access to our files.

If you are not cloud savvy or are not connected to the internet, there is a simple way of getting those pictures stored on your iPhone or iPad copied to your computer or USB thumb drive.   While neither the iPhone nor iPad have traditional USB ports, they both do have a port and cable normally used for charging.  These ports may not look like USB ports but in reality they function the same.  They just have a different non-standard plug. So you can use these ports and charging cables to access some files on the devices. 

Let’s say you want to get those vacation pictures and videos taken using your iPhone on to a DVD to share, once you do some editing and cropping.  Just connect the iPhone to your computer (Mac or Widows) using the charging cable.  Once plugged into the computer’s USB port your will find that the device becomes an external hard drive.   Any picture or video can be dragged and dropped from the phone to a folder on the computer.  Once there,  you can view, edit and crop the photos and then store them on any media or send them to Facebook or other social media.

Of course all of this can be done using the cloud but some might be intimidated by this technology or you may be in a location that does not provide connection to the Internet.

Sometimes the direct wire approach works just fine.

Supreme Court Says “No” to Aereo

In January I wrote about Aereo, a TV subscription service that delivered local over-the-air TV channels via your Internet connection to a variety of digital devices and enabled you to record, pause and fast forward the programs.  In essence, it was a personal antenna and DVR in the cloud.  (Full disclosure … I was a beta tester for the fledgling service)

When you signed up for Aereo you had access to all the local TV channels.  By my count there were 24 TV channels available to Cincinnati area viewers.  They included the main channels like WCET, WCPO, WLW as well as all the multicast channels available with digital broadcasting.

To watch any program you used your computer, tablet or smartphone to access the Aereo.com web site and, using the program guide, you could choose the program you wanted to watch or record.  You could watch live, or choose to record a program selected from the on-screen guide up to two weeks in advance.

As reported in January, the broadcasters were not happy about Aereo since the company did not pay them retransmission fees.  These fees are paid to commercial broadcasters by cable and satellite services and are a source of billions of dollars for the TV stations.  The broadcasters and the National Association of Broadcasters, their lobbying group, petitioned the courts to force Aereo to either pay the fees, or cease operation. Late in June, the Supreme Court ruled in favor of the broadcasters.

Aereo had argued that since they were using individual small antennas (one dedicated to each subscriber) to pick up the TV broadcasts and the internet to provide the programs, they were only serving as an enabling agent for each subscriber allowing them to exercise their right to watch and record over-the-air broadcasts for free.

Without going into all the complicated legal prose, suffice it to say the Supreme Court did not buy the argument and essentially said that Aereo was trying to manipulate the intent of the copyright laws governing fair use of broadcasts by individuals in their homes.  So as of last week Aereo is no longer in operation.  Their future is still uncertain.  The company could decide to pay broadcasters the retransmission fees but that would require a significant increase the monthly subscription price for the service.

Many in the industry were concerned that high court’s opinion would have a stifling impact on the operation of other cloud-based services like Dropbox or iCloud.  These services often allow individuals to store and retrieve copyrighted materials.

I’ll keep an eye on this issue and report back.  I don’t think we have seen the last of Aereo or other similar services.