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.