Sunday, December 10, 2017

Air Transfer

As I mentioned in my Back and Forth post I'm using an iOS app Air Transfer to copy photos from the iPhone to my Windows laptop.

Here's my workflow.

I launch Air Transfer.


On my laptop I browse to the URL that Air Transfer presents. It pretty much never changes.


On my laptop I click on the link to take me to the Camera Roll.


I select the photos that I want to transfer to my laptop. The free version of Air Transfer lets you select 10 photos at a time. The upgrade to the Pro version is $1.99.


I click on the Download link.


Air Transfer then creates a zip file and downloads it to my laptop.

When the download is complete I go back to the iPhone, double-click the home button and swipe away Air Transfer.

Then I launch Apple's Photo app and delete everything on the Camera Roll.

Done.

Why don't I use Google Photos? Actually I do. But Google Photos recompresses the photos so I don't use this copy for archive. I use the Google Photos copies for casual sharing.

Why don't I use Dropbox? Actually I do. But not for photo transfers. Dropbox renames the files. I prefer to maintain the original file name.

For a thorough comparison of Google Photos and Dropbox revisit my Dropbox vs Bluetooth vs Google Photos post. Think of Air Transfer as the iPhone equivalent of using Bluetooth on Android.

Here is one of the screen captures from the app store:


Here's what mine looks like:


Because there is no slider for WiFi Transfer you must swipe away the app. I asked the developer about his. He replied quickly.
I am currently overhauling the internals of the App.
The on/off switch was temporarily eliminated in current version.
To disconnect Air Transfer, you can either shutdown the WiFi of iOS or terminate Air Transfer.
The on/off function will be available in later updates.
A similar app is File Hub. It has a lot broader set of capabilities than Air Transfer but includes a Wi-Fi transfer service. I didn't stick with File Hub as it requires a web password on each execution. If you're using a public Wi-Fi this is absolutely necessary but on my home Wi-Fi this was just a nuisance.


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