John Doe wrote:

The reason for Apple's success with iTunes and then the iPhone is
innovation. The majority of iPhone users probably do not have PCs
and could not care less about PC connectivity.

I'm sure that more than a decade ago iTunes was innovative, but now it's
just restrictive.

Worse, iTunes is the canonical definition of bloatware.
https://duckduckgo.com/?q=itunes+bloatware

Worse still, iTunes doesn't work in the real world.

The only people who suggest iTunes are those whose imaginary belief system
is entirely fabricated by Apple so it doesn't include anything outside the
walled garden.

But this thread isn't about that.
This thread is about interfacing iOS to Windows, where we've had some good
success today.

1. USB (works seamlessly both ways for Windows, one way for Linux)
2. FTP server (works seamlessly both ways for both Windows & Linux)
3. HTTP server (works seamlessly both ways for both Windows & Linux)
4. SMB server (probably works - but smb:// URIs are foreign to me in
Win/Linux)
5. Bluetooth (this would work but I don't have BT or WiFi on my desktop)
6. SMB client (e.g., File Explorer, which will work also with Linux Samba)
7. WiFi server (e.g., VLC, which uses an unknown protocol at the moment)
8. Apple-services (e.g., iMazing - which fails miserably just as iTunes
does)