[1970-01-01]

In 2006 I successfully copied all pictures off my Motorola Razr via Bluetooth to my PC in one go. Try doing that with your new iPhone Air. Who's losing old photos again?

[piva00]

It's actually quite simple to copy photos from an iPhone, even my mother-in-law does it regularly to save them, and prints some out as gifts.

Much easier (and faster) than the BT stuff from the Razr era.

[dangus]

Very easily.

Even without Apple software, connecting to a Windows PC with a USB cable, iPhone will present itself as a digital camera so you can import photos with the built-in Microsoft photos app or file explorer. You can also use Apple’s Windows software.

On Mac, even without iCloud, you can sync photos “the old way” just like iPod synced content used to do. The photos app will transfer photos over USB or WiFi and you can even have it automatically delete imported photos on your iPhone to free up space, mimicking the workflow of a digital camera.

The Photos app can export to plain files trivially, with a simple drag and drop.

There are also iPhone applications that automatically handle background imports (such as Ente and Google Photos). There are also numerous iPhone transfer apps that can integrate into the share sheet, the possibilities are basically endless.

There’s also AirDrop, or you can move files via the files app to any compatible cloud or local photos app.

[YurgenJurgensen]

I was surprised that exporting from Photos on iOS to an SMB share on a local network Just Works.

[dangus]

Wow! Thanks for cluing me in, I’m trying out “connect to server” in the files app now.

Obviously none of this is massively impressive to anyone who has used Android including myself, but a lot of the assumptions surrounding iOS and iPadOS being inflexible are somewhat outdated.

[jamiek88]

You anti Apple militants are weird man. It’s like a two click operation.

[hulitu]

> You anti Apple militants are weird man. It’s like a two click operation.

When it works, yes.

Take photos -> connect to PC -> photos are not there -> go on Iphone photos app, look for them, look _at_ them -> connect again to PC -> they are finally there. Of course always giving the password. FY Apple.

[galleywest200]

I regularly export photos from Apple Photos on my Macbook. You just cmd-a cmd-c cmd-v. Sure its clunky but it works.

[socalgal2]

There's also "Image Capture" (software included with your Mac) that will just pull the raw images directly off your phone.

[Someone]

File -> Export also works, but, like that, only partially. Exporting tagged faces isn’t possible, AFAIK.

[loeg]

iPhone AirDrop works really well?

[ofrzeta]

From a UX perspective Airdrop is super nice. I don't know if there are working implementations for other OSs. Just found this here but didn't yet test it https://github.com/seemoo-lab/opendrop (hasn't been updated in 2 years, so maybe not too promising)

[monerozcash]

I didn't find AirDrop to work very well while trying to airdrop only 1TB of photos/videos from my phone to my MacBook, YMMV. Not only was it really slow, but occasionally it seemed to freeze and there weren't really any meaningful progress indicators.

[loeg]

I don't think GP's 2006 Motorola Razr would transfer 1TB of photos especially quickly, either...

[monerozcash]

I somehow doubt anyone has ever experienced this problem with the 2006 Motorola Razr

[actionfromafar]

Lot's not get ahead of ourselves. That's the other end of extreme opinion. Airdrop has never worked reliably for me.

[hysan]

Huh? I’ve been backing up my iPhone photos to my home server (running ZFS) since my first iPhone back in 2011. And Linux was my primary OS too. Not sure where that iPhone Air comment comes from.