Paul wrote:

There's nothing primitive about that.

Hi Paul,
warning ... long reply

You're reasonable so I understand your point that "different" isn't
primitive, where I think I "can" argue primitive in functionality overall
for iOS - but most people only see "different".

For example, here's the app launcher on iOS as best it can be organized:
https://u.cubeupload.com/0Mattl.jpg

Here's that same setup on Android using a modern app launcher (where the
organization is meant for single-hand left-hand operation that fits my hand
size).
http://i.cubeupload.com/0Uldf2.jpg

Organizing like that is just not possible on iOS because, yes, iOS is
clearly different, but it's also clearly primitive in functionality.

There's no good reason for Apple to not allow people to put icons where
they want them on their mobile device desktop and to not allow people to
remove the dock if there's nothing inside of it.

Nonetheless, this isn't a discussion about iOS but it is a discussion of
HOW to interface what little there is of iOS that is interfacable with
Windows.

My biggest stumbling block is SMB because I don't know how to use it.
I can put an SMB server on iOS, such that the URL becomes:
smb://192.168.1.14
But I don't know what to do with that on Windows.

It's a walled garden, intended to wall off the copying of commercial
content all over the place (except as vetted by iTunes policies,
whatever they are this week).

Hi Paul,
Yes. I have had iOS products for many years, and I've used that iTunes
abomination well enough to know it's like a very bad guest in your house,
best left uninvited.

There's nothing that the iTunes abomination can do that we can't do on our
own, and, better yet - I happen to be dual boot, where whatever I set up
has to work in the real world (where Linux and Canada both exist in the
real world despite Apple not supporting them).

By exposing DCIM over MTP, unidirectional, that is an "emulation"
of a digital camera

Hi Paul,
Thanks for explaining that the iPad DCIM directory shows up as an emulated
camera.

I assumed that is what it was since on Linux, the iPad actually shows up as
a camera.
http://i.cubeupload.com/Qpq8Bc.png

Like a camera, it's only one way where you can't slide from Linux to the
iPad "camera" DCIM directory.
http://i.cubeupload.com/CmK9un.png

Whatever is shot through the lens of the
camera on your iPad is "your" content, it doesn't belong to Getty
or anyone else. You can download the DCIM files, in the same
sense you can download files from DCIM on your regular digital camera.

You are correct Paul, and I do very much understand exactly where you're
coming from when you mention "Getty", which, as we all know, Apple is
restrictive on what you can download "outside" of the Camera.

For example, here's a movie being downloaded from the desktop to the iPad
but using a non-Apple app, in this case, VLC, which has a two-way WiFi
capability for large movie transfer.
http://i.cubeupload.com/e5razP.jpg

So, the truth of the matter is that if you eschew Apple apps, you can
transfer anything you want back and forth, within reason.

There are still huge limitations on file formats that will play on iOS and
on what apps can do, but the rule of staying away from Apple apps is the
first rule to use if you want any degree of freedom.

Think of it as a digital camera emulation kinda outside the
walled garden, provided for your "convenience".

Hi Paul,
I certainly understand that the "concept" is supposed to be "it just works"
but the reality is that it's like being in prison in that you can't do the
simplest of things with iOS, such as organize your desktop the way you want
to, or, more to the point, to transfer files back and forth from Windows to
the iPad and vice versa at will.

Of course, that's my goal - to be able to transfer files easily, where I've
gotten the following working to some degree...
1. USB (I have this working only one way, & only for Camera files)
2. FTP (I have this working flawlessly both ways on Linux & Windows)
3. HTTP (I have this working flawlessly both ways on Linux & Windows)
4. SMB (I don't have enough knowledge of syntax yet to test this out)
5. BT (I don't have a Bluetooth PCI card or USB dongle on this desktop)
6. App-specific transfer (e.g., "File Explorer", "VLC", etc. work ok)

The model is still consistent with the Apple way of doing things.
When you buy Apple, you buy the whole package.

I realize, and I've said many times on the iOS newsgroups that the Apple
way is to "just give up" whenever you want to do something that Apple
marketing didn't already script for the user.

But I'm not that type. I don't just give up when Windows tries to update
me, just as I don't just give up whenever Apple tries to restrict me.

What's funny is that there is a definite hierarchy (IMHO) in the tendency
to just give up, where the iOS users just give up so often that they don't
even realize they give up every day all day and where the Linux users are
on the bottom where they never give up, and the Windows users are somewhere
in between.

If the iPad could be rooted, maybe it could be different ?

Yes. I've done both rooting and jailbreaking. But I prefer not to.

I don't keep track of how root-able little smartphones
and **** are these days. What's the point ? If I need a
hassle or a nuisance, I now have a pretty good idea where
I can find it.

Android rooting is so simple it's not funny. You just download an app such
as Kingoroot and run it. There are other methods, but that's one of the
simplest.
https://www.kingoapp.com/

My digital camera doesn't have issues. I get the files
just fine. Mine isn't a Wifi model, but I bet there are
more modern cameras where the Wifi works too.

USB is fine most of the time, but I have the iPad working over WiFi.
My biggest problem, so far, is smb since I don't understand it.

If I get this SMB URI out of an iPad, what can I do with it on Windows?]
smb://192.168.1.14
https://u.cubeupload.com/c53HYP.jpg

It used to be possible, to take iTunes installer apart with
7ZIP, into separate installers, and just install a portion of
it. But I can't remember what protocols or options this exposes.
Maybe you can look this up somewhere ?

Oh, trust me on this that I'm a very old hand with that iTunes abomination,
where I've watched every file it puts and where it puts it. It's just too
much to deal with, since iTunes is an abomination anyway, even if you do
manage to get most of the crap it installs to behave.

Worse, it doesn't even work in the real world, so, when I dual boot, I've
gotten nowwhere (and please don't suggest Wine). I'm too old and hence too
experienced to deal with either iTunes or Wine anymore.
Tunes however because of the missing component."

https://support.imazing.com/hc/en-us...evice-Windows-

Which leads us here. Just an example of the kinda stuff to look for.

https://imazing.com/

First off, I haven't had to install /anything/ on Windows or Linux, which
is how it should be, and which is the goal, since that has the most
portability when it uses native Windows/Linux tools.

Nonetheless, since you bothered to find this iMazing App, I'll do a quick
review, but I already know it's crap because I'm too experienced not to
know it's not going to need all the crapware that iTunes add. Just wait and
see....

BTW, some of the file-transfer apps that do what iTunes does did NOT need
to install all the Apple crapware, such as the /older/ versions of
SharePod, which I still use all the time on my iPods.

However, I'm sure, just by looking at the webpage for the program you
found, that it's going to install all sorts of Apple-mandated bloatware ...
but let's see.

Remember, the goal is to work in the real world, and without any software
on the desktop, so this iMazing app is just a better version of the iTunes
abomination, most likely ... but ... let's check it out anyway.

First off, just as a check, it's not an iOS app:
http://i.cubeupload.com/4dJirT.jpg

So it won't work in the real world because it's a Windows/Mac app:
https://imazing.com/download/windows

And it will almost assuredly add unwanted services and other bloatware just
as the iTunes abomination does.

Nonetheless that it won't work in the real world, since you went to the
trouble to find iMazing, and since I know, from experience, that it won't
work in the real world, I figured I'd give you more data about that by
installing it, at least on Windows, if not on Linux.

Here's my installation log, which I write for all installers:
The iMazing 2.4.7.0 Windows executable download is 87.5MB.
It wants to go in C:\Program Files\DigiDNA\iMazing
I put it in C:\app\hardware\ios\imazing (122MB)

Just like with the iTunes abomination, the iMazing software downloads the
following dependencies:
Apple Application Support (32bit & 64 bit)
Apple Mobile Device Support 64 bit)
Apple Bonjour 64 bit
http://i.cubeupload.com/vfwHUW.jpg

Notice, just like the iTunes abomination, most of the software doesn't go
where you told it to go. For example, the Bonjour crapware didn't go where
you asked it to go; instead the Bonjour crapware went into:
C:\Program Files\Bonjour & C:\Program Files (x86)\Bonjour

This is some of the crapware that was added by the iMazing installer:
Apple Mobile Device Support 11.0.5.14
AppleApplicationSupport 6.3
AppleApplicationSupport4 6.3
Bonjour 3.1.0.1

In the task manager, there's a crapware "Bonjour service" & a crapware
"Apple Mobile Device Service" under "MobileDeviceService".

The iMazing app recognizes the iPad, but apparently only via USB:
http://i.cubeupload.com/t4DZ0b.jpg

The initial view only shows the Apple-mandated apps on the iPad, and none
of the app-transfer apps that I have loaded yet (but that comes later).
http://i.cubeupload.com/7VORmh.jpg

Namely it shows, by default, Camera, Photos, Music, Videos, iBooks,
Messages, Notes, Contacts, Phone, Apps, File System, and New Shortcut.

In addition, the actions that seem available are Back Up, Restore a Backup,
Transfer to another Device, Manage Apps, Options, Check Warranty, Sleep,
Restart, Shut Down, Export Raw Data, Show Device Console, Forget, Reinstall
iOS, and Erase All Content.

When I clicked "New Shortcut", now more apps showed up, namely
FileExplorer, GarageBand, iMovie, Keynote, MFExplorer, Numbers, Pages, Topo
Reader, VLC and WiFi HD.
http://i.cubeupload.com/30D3cf.jpg

So I added the non-Apple apps above to get this:
http://i.cubeupload.com/VpyM9u.jpg

Wanting to slide a movie into the private space of VLC, I clicked on VLC to
see this "copy to PC" and "copy to device" option for VLC's private space.
http://i.cubeupload.com/TpGPBJ.jpg

It asked me if I wanted to transfer a file or a folder, where I selected
"file" and then I selected a feature-length movie AVI file, where the first
limitation just popped up, which I expected but I didn't know what the
limitation would be (since they never make it clear at the start):
http://i.cubeupload.com/HP5Go7.jpg

The catch with iMazing, besides all the expected catches that it will never
work in the real world and that it requires bloatware on your computer and
bloatservices and that it doesn't behave itself etc., is that it doesn't
even work in the general sense for all users for any decent length of time.

The iMazing software is crippleware, limited to:
10 Messages
50 Photos
50 Music
5 Books
5 Notes
10 Contacts
5 Call History
1 Voicemail
3 Voice Memos
100 File Transfer
10 BackupExport

I deleted the iMazing crippleware after this quick test.

In summary, I am too experienced to believe there is any need for such
crippleware simply to transfer files back and forth from an iOS device to a
Windows or Linux desktop without having to install anything on the Windows
desktop.

However, while crippleware isn't for me, I do agree with you Paul, that if
someone hates the iTunes abomination, and if they're willing to purchase
this iMazing software and if they're not in the real world, then it should
work fine for copying files back and forth but only between Windows/Mac and
the iOS device.