MacNN Forums - how do I transfer a large file to somebody else's iOS device?

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tadd

May 22, 2012 12:38 PM

how do I transfer a large file to somebody else's iOS device?

I have a movie I made myself on my Mac. I can share it to my iPhone.
My question is, how do I put a movie from my iPhone, or from my Mac, onto somebody else's iPhone?

The situation is, I made a great little movie. My daughter comes over to visit (I'm old) and I wanted to give it to her to put it on her iPhone. The movie is half a gigabyte long. Messages can't do it. email can't do it. I can't sync her iPhone to my Mac without blowing away other things she has on the iPhone. The only way I can figure to do it is upload it to youtube or gallery.mac.com and that seems really tedious. I can put it on a USB key and have her bring it home to her Mac and then put it on her iPhone from there. Also tedious.

Same problem at work. I have a document or files I want to put onto my iPhone to read later. How do I get it to the iPhone? If it is small enough I can save it through email. Really tedious. Isn't there a non-internet way to handle that? Even iTunes on my MSWindows machine at work would be better than using email. Can I have multiple iTunes instances talk to the same iOS device without trashing the data on the iOS device each time I go back and forth?

My son has a program for his iPad which lets me copy stuff off my HD in iTunes and then see them later on the iPhone. I think it's called iFlashDrive or something like that. He still has to put it on HIS computer in order to copy it to HIS iPad.

Any ideas would be great.
Tadd

andi*pandi

May 22, 2012 12:52 PM

For the documents, you can sign up for Dropbox, and install the dropbox app on the iphone, it will sync between devices and you can also share items with other people. You can try putting the movie there too.

You could also try the largeformat email sites like yousendit.com.

subego

May 22, 2012 01:15 PM

Andi's got it with Dropbox. It's awesome. You should have it anyway.

angelmb

May 22, 2012 01:50 PM

If you are going to use Dropbox, make sure you upload the file via the desktop application, these have no size limit. On the other hand, files uploaded through the Dropbox website have a 300 MB size limit.

iFlashDrive seems to be a hardware/software combo, looks nice, it is expensive, though.

You might try USB Disk.

tadd

May 22, 2012 02:38 PM

so no iOS solution?

Quote, Originally Posted by andi*pandi (Post 4169166)

I'd rather not have to put files over the internet just to put them on another device which is 6" away.

Question about yousendit, if I used yousendit, could somebody with just an icloud account receive a 500MB file?

DropBox sound interesting for one application but what I really want is to be able move data 6" between a computer or iOS device and another unrelated iOS device. Considering the transfer rate between my Mac and my iPhone, doing stuff via internet is really slow.

Spheric Harlot

May 22, 2012 02:51 PM

There's Air Sharing and a number of similar tools, which turn the iPhone into a local server that you can access via wi-fi and upload files into.

They're viewable within the app, and can be pulled off the phone on the "main" computer through iTunes, or via wi-fi access to the app within any network, just the way it worked when you uploaded to the phone.

tadd

May 22, 2012 02:54 PM

DropBox vs iDisk

Quote, Originally Posted by subego (Post 4169170)

Andi's got it with Dropbox. It's awesome. You should have it anyway.

Thanks for being on-top of this forum. I appreciate the fast turn-around. I didn't think of using DropBox to store a file on the iPhone. Does it really sync over to the iPhone automagically? Or only when the file is accessed?

I do have Dropbox, but my daughter doesn't and I was kind of hoping that I was missing something dumb which would just have let me plug her iPhone into my Mac and move the file. Question about DropBox... Will it notice that both clients can talk to each-other? or will it sync to the cloud? I think it syncs to the cloud. Putting a 500MB movie on the cloud and waiting for it to go across the internet twice via my cable modem or 3G is silly anyway when we're in the same room with WiFi and Bluetooth and USB2. If there isn't a better way, Apple should be thinking of making one. Moving 500MB could take all dinner and the time to watch Simpsons afterwards, oh but Simpsons wouldn't work because my streaming bandwidth would be trashed by my DropBox transfer. (I'm trying to be ironic, not nasty)

Spheric Harlot

May 22, 2012 03:14 PM

Nope.

Dropbox works exactly the way you imagine it will...and files aren't actually downloaded onto the iPhone until you tap them.

turtle777

May 22, 2012 03:30 PM

Quote, Originally Posted by Spheric Harlot (Post 4169208)

Dropbox works exactly the way you imagine it will...and files aren't actually downloaded onto the iPhone until you tap them.

Also worth pointing out: you can make any file on Dropbox permanently available (even when you're offline) by marking it as a favorite (star button).

-t

The Godfather

May 23, 2012 10:54 PM

No internet: iFile puts all your iPhone folders on the LAN with its embedded HTTP server. You just visit the iPhone's IPv4 LAN address with your other iPhone, navigate until you find the file, and download with an app that can store it (that's the part I can't help you with).

angelmb

May 24, 2012 03:00 AM

A pity the iPhone Dropbox client does not use LAN sync.

tadd

Jun 2, 2012 03:36 PM

Phone Drive

Quote, Originally Posted by Spheric Harlot (Post 4169201)

I had no idea such things existed. I found Phone Drive which sound like what you are talking about. I just have to figure out my phone's IP address and then access it using a web browser on the LAN. That brings up a menu which allows drag & drop of files over the network. It's WiFi slow but it's a ton faster than doing it via Internet and handles gigabit long files. Only thing with Phone Drive is that it totally fails in the WiFi upload process if the Phone Drive application is quit.
:stick:
Other good news is that Phone Drive does let me store/get files on it from somebody else's iTunes over USB. :stick:

Thanks for the help.

anthology123

Jun 3, 2012 11:27 PM

Quote, Originally Posted by tadd (Post 4169164)

I don't see why using a flash drive is tedious. Give her a cheap 1GB flash drive, she will take it homeplug her phone into her computer, plug the usb drive in, and just drag the movie from the USB drive to the iPhone in iTunes.

The lack of ability for you to put any files you want on HER iPhone at your home is a two edge sword. It's also cumbersome for someone else to put something on her iPhone too unless they know alot of tricks.

HealthBuffMe

Aug 12, 2012 08:10 AM

I am not familiar with some software or expensive apps intended for storing and sending large files. The ones I use are the old school Dropbox and the use of my 8GB flash drive. Ever since I have never had any problems in saving or transferring files.

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