patrick.net

I'm sure it's possible but they make it almost impossible because their model is that you store everything in the cloud and stream on demand, using apple services only. Local storage and calculating file sizes is too complex of a concept for the "modern" generation.

mell says

I'm sure it's possible but they make it almost impossible because their model is that you store everything in the cloud and stream on demand, using apple services only. Local storage and calculating file sizes is too complex of a concept for the "modern" generation.

I don't think it has anything to do with the users. I am just shocked at how much of a paperweight an iPhone really is.

I really can't get over that people would pay $1,000 for a phone where they actually can't save a file on.

My Pixel doesn’t had SD an card either.

While there is no external memory card, of course you can save files onto the iPhone.

BayArea says

While there is no external memory card, of course you can save files onto the iPhone.

Show me with screen shots. Nobody was able to do it.



There's a short video. How the fuck do you save it through the web browser? It's not even an option.

Maybe there are things that are such toxic nerd shit, even the iPhone can't digest them.

Apple has "iCloud Drive" feature. It's built into iOS, iPadOS, and macOS. For example, if you are using macOS, the drive just appears as a mounted volume in the UI. You drag-and-drop or use the UNIX command line and put files over there just like moving to any other destination in the file system. The "ditto" command line tool, which you can compile yourself if you want to customize, works great! Although the synching is (unfortunately) through the cloud, you can still force files to be loaded on your other devices by trying to access them from the other devices.

In the old days, you could also use iTunes to move files directly—much more effort, but more control, too. If you have a (free) Apple developer account, you can use XCode to move files.

Windows and Linux users? I don't know. Sucks to be you, I suppose. I'd suggest using the iCloud web interface with your browser to get things over there.

As for an SD card... yeah that would be nice. On the other hand, the iPhones (for the last few years) are IP-68 water resistant, which is tricky to do with an SD card reader. There is an SD Card to Lightning device, but sadly that only allows you to download photos and videos from your iPhone.

SunnyvaleCA says

Windows and Linux users? I don't know. Sucks to be you, I suppose. I'd suggest using the iCloud web interface with your browser to get things over there.

Dude. this is what it looks like on my phone



"Download link" - second option from the bottom. This doesn't share it with a 3rd party, which iCloud would. How would you store a private document on an iPhone?

And with Android and Linux, I can send and receive files through FTP or SCP, Samba as well. I'm not much of a fan of Samba though.

How did Apple take BSD and fucking totally break it?

When you're 6 miles up in the air, you don't always have reliable 5g. I just don't get it, it's just astonishing. I complain about Android being a spy device, and it certainly can be, but Apple ONLY works with online storage. It's insane. I bet every photograph, every video, everything you've EVER taken on your iPhone is stored by Apple. It's totally a 1984 telescreen. You're crazy to use this shit. I can at least DETECT intrusion in my phone. iPhone users need intrusion for it just to fucking work. Mindblowing.

Here's a question - when I replace my phone with another, I keep the old one around. It becomes basically a music player which I don't really worry about breaking. Last time I upgraded it was because 4G service was being forcibly taken away, but the old phone still works, even though it's got plenty of cracks on the screen now after 4 years. Can you even USE an iPhone without cell service on it? My old phone is fine for stuff like telegram, I just have to be in a wifi area.

I remember my sister wanted to download some of her iPhone pictures onto a PC as she was making a calendar. The required incantations were not simple.

EBGuy says

I remember my sister wanted to download some of her iPhone pictures onto a PC as she was making a calendar. The required incantations were not simple.

Weird that there's not an application toolset to do this. Interesting mystery.

It's weird, I never realized that people would go backwards in capability. It's fine to have iCloud, it's fine to have segregated sandboxes, all that crap is OK, but you can't even move a video file on and off the phone. What's the point of having 64 or 128 MB when you can't use it? Does the phone even function without the Internet? I can save Google Maps on my phone - and although I will lose real time traffic updates, I can still navigate.

Seems like if the cell network went down, an iPhone would be next to worthless.

You know, it's not very useful, but I can run a full Linux machine on my phone. It's kind of pointless to do, but once I do it, I basically have a computer in my back pocket that I can carry around. I wonder if an Android simulator can be put on a iPhone? Shouldn't be too difficult.

This is a timely question. I had a Realtor contact me today asking if I could make a video out of several clips she had taken with her iPhone. I told her I could if she can send them to me. Is iPhone/Apple videos compatible with video editing software?

GNL says

This is a timely question. I had a Realtor contact me today asking if I could make a video out of several clips she had taken with her iPhone. I told her I could if she can send them to me. Is iPhone/Apple videos compatible with video editing software?

Yeah, the videos and pictures HAVE to be compatible. That would be BIZARRE if they aren't. It's possible they aren't, but we've pretty much settled on some pretty hard standard, jpg for images, mp4 (h.264) for video. There is h.265, but barely anybody uses it right now, since it's still under patent.

The problem is, getting the files off the phone. That's the hard part. Stone knives and bear skins. Presumably she knows how to get the files off the phone. As long as you can get them, they'd HAVE to be standard.

That said, once you're in the iSphere, stuff gets pretty easy. Wild watching folks at a kids sporting event airDrop photos and videos between iPhones. Not sure where I would start with Android (likely share a Google Drive, though I think you can do stuff with bluetooth).

richwicks says

GNL says

This is a timely question. I had a Realtor contact me today asking if I could make a video out of several clips she had taken with her iPhone. I told her I could if she can send them to me. Is iPhone/Apple videos compatible with video editing software?

Yeah, the videos and pictures HAVE to be compatible. That would be BIZARRE if they aren't. It's possible they aren't, but we've pretty much settled on some pretty hard standard, jpg for images, mp4 (h.264) for video. There is h.265, but barely anybody uses it right now, since it's still under patent.

The problem is, getting the files off the phone. That's the hard part. Stone knives and bear skins. Presumably she knows how to get the files off the phone. As long as you can get them, they'd HAVE to be standard.

So, she tried to email and text them to me but they were too large. She is going to take shorter/smaller video clips tomorrow and try again. I'll report back if she does.

GNL says

So, she tried to email and text them to me but they were too large. She is going to take shorter/smaller video clips tomorrow and try again. I'll report back if she does.

Haha, so messed off. You can take a video with an iPhone, but you can only see the video on... the iPhone.

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201302

That might help.

You know what I do?

$ ftp 192.168.1.226 2221

Once I enter a username and password, I can just move the files back and forth. One thing I hate though, ftp defaults to ASCII format. I guess it's a standard, but nobody uses ASCII ,they use binary, and have for like the last 20 years. Binary/ASCII wars ended in the 1980's. It defaults to ASCII so file formats (I guess?) can be converted between DOS and Unix file formats, if they are text files.

GNL says

Is iPhone/Apple videos compatible with video editing software?

Apple as a rule tries to lock you into its horribly bloated and proprietary Quicktime video format. There are ways to convert from Quicktime to the much smaller and infinitely more portable .mp4 format, but Apple won't help you with it.

Patrick says

Apple as a rule tries to lock you into its horribly bloated and proprietary Quicktime video format. There are ways to convert from Quicktime to the much smaller and infinitely more portable .mp4 format, but Apple won't help you with it.

I can't believe this, no matter how much I hate apple.

You can convert with ffmpeg, I just checked.

https://stackoverflow.com/questions/12026381/ffmpeg-converting-mov-files-to-mp4

I bet most video editors would accept *.mov files, if ffmpeg can read it.

I did some searches and it looks like you're right @richwicks

There does not seem to be a way to save a video from a web page to an iPhone unless you install some external app for that purpose.

Patrick says

There does not seem to be a way to save a video from a web page to an iPhone unless you install some external app for that purpose.

It's so bizarre!

To be fair, FTP is a 3rd party tool, but I can also transfer files via USB. I don't think FTP is quite suitable for normal human beings. The interface is pretty primitive although there is curlftps, but that's pretty squirrely. The FTP server I use is probably not entirely compliant with the standard.

I couldn't imagine having a modern phone and not have the ability to throw a file onto it. It's so weird.

richwicks says

I couldn't imagine having a modern phone and not have the ability to throw a file onto it. It's so weird.

You're used to knowing what's going on and having freedom to move files around. Most people have only a very dim idea of what's going on, and never having had the freedom to really move files wherever they want to, don't consciously miss it.

It's like a dog that's never been able to run free. Maybe it's kind of sad, but doesn't really know why.

So I think your problem is you are using a crap browser. I went to your link from the screen shot in safari. I long pressed it. It gave me the option to download the video. Now it’s on my phone. I’m sure at this point it would be trivial to air drop it.

pudil says

I went to your link from the screen shot in safari. I long pressed it. It gave me the option to download the video.

I did not get any option when long pressing the video in Safari on my iPhone 7.

pudil says

So I think your problem is you are using a crap browser. I went to your link from the screen shot in safari. I long pressed it. It gave me the option to download the video. Now it’s on my phone. I’m sure at this point it would be trivial to air drop it.

Hmm. I'm going to have to get an iPhone emulator to understand the damned thing.

Well, enjoy Plan 9 from Outer Space - I suppose I should remove the Vincent Price stuff. It was an ffpmeg test. Low quality videos, seeing just how low quality I could go before it started to annoy me.

I wonder what browser my brother was using? I assumed default, he's not exactly a technical wizard.