The iPhone has a fairly decent camera and the iPad 2 has, well, a camera. What neither possesses is a really easy way to transfer your latest snaps from your device to your computer. Instead, there are several methods that are pretty clumsy and which usually involve connecting your device and computer via a cable, sidestepping iTunes and then copying the photos manually.
A quicker and more efficient solution is to transfer your photos wirelessly courtesy of the Photo Transfer App (www.phototransferapp.com). It’ll set you back a few bucks, but it’s a small price for the convenience. With the app, you get photos from your device to your computer in this way:
- Ensure your device and computer are on the same wireless network.
- Open the app on your iPhone or iPad.
- Tap the Send button.
- Tap ‘Select Photos & Videos’, tap to select the images you want to transfer and tap Done.
- On your computer, type the IP address displayed by the app into your browser. It will look something like
http://192.168.1.101:8080. You can omit the http:// part when you type it. - Click ‘Download all photos as a zip’ to copy them to your computer.
This sounds like a lot of steps, but the process is remarkably quick. You can make it even faster by storing the IP address in your browser bookmarks; the fourth part of the address (‘101’ in our example) may change slightly each time you use it, depending on your network configuration, but it’s still faster to use your bookmark and edit that number than to type the whole address in.
The Photo Transfer App also lets you transfer photos between two i-devices and there the process is even slicker.
- Ensure you’re on the same wireless network.
- Open the app on both devices.
- Select the photos on the sending device.
- Tap Device at the bottom of the screen.
- On the receiving device, tap Device, tap the name of the sending device in the list and tap either ‘Get photos’ or ‘Get videos’.
Using Bluetooth
If you don’t have a wireless network available, the Photo Transfer App lets you use Bluetooth instead. It’s slower than a wireless transfer, but handy nevertheless.
To use Bluetooth, tap ‘Use Bluetooth’ on each of the devices and then tap ‘Enable Bluetooth’ and OK. The app will display a list of Bluetooth-enabled devices; choose the correct one, accept the connection and then tap ‘Get photos’ on the receiving device.
What’s particularly nice about this is that you don’t have to leave the app to turn on your Bluetooth connection — other app developers please note!
Alternatives
There are a bunch of apps that do essentially the same job as the Photo Transfer App. You may find one of those apps suits you better, but there are several good reasons to use the Photo Transfer App:
- It provides a choice between wireless and Bluetooth transfers.
- It works with video and photos.
- It has some of the best built-in help we’ve seen in any app. That’s backed up with an active online support forum and a developer that responds to queries promptly.
- It’s reliable. Many of the other apps only work every now and then, if at all. There’s one app called PhotoSync, which purports to be even easier to use because it eliminates the need to use your browser as an intermediary. However, in our tests, it’s exceedingly unreliable at making a connection and completing transfers. It also requires you to install a piece of software on your computer.
Because of the similarity in names between so many of the apps, you can ensure you install the right app by searching for <code> photo transfer app </code> in the App Store and making sure you choose the one by Enrique Rodriguez.
From camera to iPad
If you’re an avid photographer, consider rounding out your photo transfer tools by investing $35 in the iPad Camera Connection Kit, which gets photos from your camera onto your iPad.
The kit consists of two tiny devices that both plug into the dock connector port at the bottom of the iPad. The first device is a USB connector: plug it in and attach your camera’s cable or attach an iPhone 3GS or iPhone 4 via a USB cable. Once attached, all the photos on the device will be displayed on the iPad screen and you can import them all or tap to select images and then import those.
The second device is an SD card reader. Plug it in, insert an SD card and then import the photos from the card. The beauty of these devices is they’re so small you can tuck one or both of them into your camera case.
The Camera Connection Kit is wonderful when you’re on holiday. It provides a fast way to transfer your photos and free up memory on your SD card for more shots, while also giving you the instant gratification of viewing the shots on the iPad’s large display.
Top tip: Disconnect to troubleshoot
If you’re having trouble getting your device to ‘see’ your computer and vice versa, it could well be that your router is failing to recognise your device. To fix this, switch off the wireless connection in your device and then switch it back on. If that fails to work, try switching off your router for a minute, switching it back on and then re-enabling wireless on your device.
