It was only when I received a call from Colin the other day did I realise that some who are used to transferring files via the iPhone way, will have difficulties figuring out how to get an Android device to connect to their Mac.
On an iPhone, you can't just take someone elses phone, plug it into your pc, and take whatever you want from them, iTunes wouldn't allow that. Instead, if you need to remove pictures, you got to go through it's Image Capture or iPhoto app to extract photos from the phone. I guess when you're so used to that method, you tend to do that for everything, such as using Image Capture to extract from your regular camera as well. I've been more accustom to plugging in and taking stuff out from my Canon EOS the way I would a USB thumb drive, hence hardly go through Image Capture for my daily needs, thus I had overlooked that people do use them.
On an iPhone, you can't just take someone elses phone, plug it into your pc, and take whatever you want from them, iTunes wouldn't allow that. Instead, if you need to remove pictures, you got to go through it's Image Capture or iPhoto app to extract photos from the phone. I guess when you're so used to that method, you tend to do that for everything, such as using Image Capture to extract from your regular camera as well. I've been more accustom to plugging in and taking stuff out from my Canon EOS the way I would a USB thumb drive, hence hardly go through Image Capture for my daily needs, thus I had overlooked that people do use them.
Transferring Files & Images from Gingerbread to your Mac
Admittedly, Gingerbread requires a few more steps connecting to a Mac as Ice Cream Sandwich, you have to set your phone to debugging mode for your Mac to read it as a usb drive. This process isn't required on a Windows PC.
The downside to Gingerbread, or at least, the Galaxy S series, is that if you wanted to really do it the iPhone way and use something like Image Capture or iPhoto, you may have trouble locating the files cause they don't show up on the app.
Still with the ability to browse your phone like a finder folder, it wasn't that hard to extract the files once you locate them.
The steps are as follows:
1. Click Settings
2. Applications
3. Development
4. Debugging (On)
***You only have to do the above once.
5. Plug in Device
6. Pull down Notification
7. Select "Use Connected"
8. Hit button to connect via USB
***Android device will connect as a USB drive.
***You can transfer files in and out like you would a regular folder, including images, videos, documents etc
***You can't, however, download files via Image Capture or iPhoto...well, not for my Galaxy S1 anyway, and not for the Galaxy Note as I've come to learn.
Transferring Files & Images from Ice Cream Sandwich or Jelly Bean to your Mac
I've always been using Android File Transfer which is provided by Google to connect to my device. ICS has been far more friendly connecting to a Mac than the previous devices so I've found out. I was trying to figure how to get it to connect to iPhoto when I was with Colin, Al and Calvin but couldn't figure out, then I later realise how easy it was once I saw an instruction written online.
The steps are as follows:
Transferring of files, folders, music, images etc
1. Plug in Device
***Android Transfer turns on, you can browse through the file directory as you would a file system
Transferring images via iPhoto or Image Capture
1. Plug in Device
2. Pull down Notification Share
3. Select "Connect as a media device"
4. Click "Camera (PTP)"
***You can now extract via iPhoto or Image Capture
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So it's easier, but easier than the iPhone? Subjective, I guess most would say probably not....there are advantages to browsing your Android phone as a folder though as compared to iPhone via iTunes, the convenience of drag and drop is one such advantage (transferring songs into your phone is as simple as that, so is dropping in photo albums and what not), with the ability to use your phone as a storage device rather than to carry around a spare usb, less is more know?
Ultimately, I am glad that Android 4.0 and above has addressed some issues Gingerbread had with connecting to Apple computers...Image Capture is now functioning, so that's good as well.
Overall, I have to admit I haven't regretted purchasing the Nexus as compared to my slight dismay with the Galaxy S1's gps problems, in fact when I had initially wanted to buy the Nexus as a transition phone to the Galaxy S3, I decided to keep the Nexus in the end for the mere fact that I am covered directly from Google and get the latest features faster than you would via a skinned Android device.
5 comments:
sad to say, the UX of having to "turn on debugging mode" is unforgivable, especially when the phone is a pretty recent release. it could have been as easy as having a setup screen on first use that says "Are you connecting this phone to a Mac" and then enabling whatever debugging mode does right? Doing the same thing in a different manner can bring a very different experience.
The phone's actually 1 yr old already, the new Galaxy Note is running 4.0.4 and hence the steps should be easier and similar to the one I do. But I do agree that some form of pop up assistance should be in order.
Speaking of experience though, I didn't know downloading apps and logging into Facebook required username and password every time on the iPhone, I thought it'd allow one time authentication but couldn't figure out how.
to be honest, I don't think you can defend a phone released in 2011 given how the smartphone industry boomed the year before that, even more so when Mac the number of Mac users exploded some time before that.
downloading apps, you need to re-authenticate every 5 or 10mins i think. I agree it's a pain in the neck especially when the app is free. apple has finally decided to fix that in iOS6 though. as for facebook, it's always logged in, not sure where your problem came from.
I'm not defending the phone though I figured if not a lot of people are complaining about it, it can't be that big a problem for them to be upset about it, one issue doesn't render the phone useless and hence I think people see pass that, like how some Windows users may not like iTunes to manage their music but they see pass it cause the iPhone has more to offer that they see the bigger picture.
As for the facebook login, I rmb it was via safari, safari doesn't store passwords does it?
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