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iPad and WinXP


Asp

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I just received a new IPad and it's very nice, but I can't see an easy way to get files onto it from my WinXP PC.

Apple's plan is to use iTunes, but the version of iTunes  I have, 12.1, doesn't recognise the iPad when connected by USB-- is there an iTunes or something else that runs on XP that lets me send files to current iOS devices via USB?

I think I can send files to it by email; though it's absurd to send files to the other side of the world and back to transfer a few inches on my desktop; but tolerable for small documents. Would take hours to send large media files though, as I have lousy internet speed.

With my Android phone I use Airdroid which makes the phone into a server that I can access on my LAN from the PC browser and up- and download files at will. Is there such a thing for iPad (preferably free, of course....) 

Otherwise, I guess I could set up a file server on my PC. Is there a simple safe one that works on XP, one that I can restrict to just the local network? I haven't used any of Windows' own networking features; would rather not really as I hear bad things about their security, even if Apple deigned to use them.

-- on a related matter though, even if I do that, the Compass browser on the IPad appears to have no "save" option-- could not work out how to download and save a file on it. Seems rather pointless to have 256 GB of storage but not be allowed to put anything on it myself. Is there an app that actually lets me save files?

I know that Apple wants me to do everything in the Cloud, but as I said, I have lousy speed that makes it impractical. My daughter has a iMac and has to stop her cloud backups when she visits because it can't handle it.  The whole world does not have gigabit fibre, believe it or not.

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2 hours ago, Asp said:

Apple's plan is to use iTunes, but the version of iTunes  I have, 12.1, doesn't recognise the iPad when connected by USB-- is there an iTunes or something else that runs on XP that lets me send files to current iOS devices via USB?

If you connect an Android phone to a Windows computer with USB Windows "sees" its storage space and you can transfer files from and to it through Windows Explorer. When you connect the iPad doesn't it appear in Windows Explorer in some way?

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8 hours ago, jaclaz said:

Something *like* Airdroid? :unsure:

Maybe Airdroid would do ;):

 

Never thought of looking for that, the name does imply "Android".

But yes, it does work: Thanks!

However.... though I can get files to it, the Airdroid desktop screen on the PC doesn't let me access much; in particular, I can't see any books (epub files)I have in iBooks. Uploading an epub from the PC,  I can't put it directly in the iBooks library; though I can put it in a documents folder, then on the iPad, "share" that with IBooks, then delete it from the document folder. 

Apple likes to wrap everything up in bubble wrap so the id*** user can't hurt himself.

8 hours ago, HarryTri said:

If you connect an Android phone to a Windows computer with USB Windows "sees" its storage space and you can transfer files from and to it through Windows Explorer. When you connect the iPad doesn't it appear in Windows Explorer in some way?

No. When plugged in I see "Apple Mobile Device" in the Device Manager, but that's all. Can't do anything with it, certainly does not appear as a drive.

Actually, even Android phones need specific drivers to access them as drives, so unless someone knows of such for the IPad, that isn't going to work. I'm sure Apple never made one available, maybe someone hacked one.

The next thing to look into is rooting the iPad. After 2 days I'm banging my head on the wall as it blocks every attempt to do anything aside from just connecting to the web or consuming prepackaged media.

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On Πέμπτη, 2 Αυγούστου 2018 at 6:54 AM, Asp said:

Actually, even Android phones need specific drivers to access them as drives, so unless someone knows of such for the IPad, that isn't going to work. I'm sure Apple never made one available, maybe someone hacked one.

The next thing to look into is rooting the iPad. After 2 days I'm banging my head on the wall as it blocks every attempt to do anything aside from just connecting to the web or consuming prepackaged media.

I connect my Android devices to the PC and transfer files without any special drivers (they do exist but for more complex tasks).

Rooting is intentionally difficult with Android too and every new version makes it even more difficult, I suppose the same goes with iOS.

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  • 1 year later...

Follow up: Yes, you can upload files via Airdroid, but it is completely pointless, because you cannot "share" the files with any apps (except maybe images). So you cannot, e,g load media, epub books, documents etc,.

However, I found the free "Documents" app, from Readdle. This has a mode, "Computer" where it acts like Airdroid, creating a web server to up and download files from a browser on a another device. (Didn't work on browser on Android though.) The difference is, once the file is in Documents, you can then "Share" it with any other app.  

While you can upload batches of files, it seems you can only share one file at a time. When uploading 100 files, this is annoying. But it does work.

"Documents" also has its own browser, and unlike Safari or Chrome, it lets you download and save and then share files, like MP3 podcasts, epub files for iBooks, from any web page.

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From my experience with iOS, it is much inferior to android in system feature. Its logic of doing things is not for your convenience, but for your its safety; and for this odd purpose, you cannot do many things that is so natural on other platforms that it shouldn't be deemed as a "feature", such as transfer files with other devices, save a document and open in another app, etc.

As I read, iOS has a unique sandbox structure, which means every app is isolated, that an app can only access data of its own, which suggests data sharing is not possible, or complicated. There are shared documents directory but I never know how exactly it works, and it seems rather limited. It seems only iTunes has special privilege to manage data. Other tools calling iTunes lib are more user friendly, like iTools. If you need a true file manager, you must jailbreak it. But even after that, you still cannot do simple tasks say open a html file in your device with Safari, because Safari app locked in "sandbox" just can't access that file. Typical things iOS can do is processing data from network, and back to network, and do it only in one app. That makes iOS a specialized toy.

 

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Interesting. That matches my experience as well, that every App has it's own documents folder.

Windows XP interfacing worked fine in 2014. For now my Ipad is still in 2014 software-wise, by choice.

- IOS version 8.1.3.

- Itools for Windows 1.8.4.6 (3rd party, works on Windows XP, requires iTunes driver like most such USB transfer software)

- iTunes v12.01

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