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george99

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Aug 1, 2008
8
0
Hi,
When I connect my iphone to a windows computer, it allows me to open it up like a thumbdrive where I can directly access the images and videos stored on the phone.

However, when I connect to a MAC, it does not (or at least I don't know how) all this. As an example, I just took a picture of something that I wanted upload to a website. But I can't find a way to access that image thru the file system without going thru iphoto and exporting it first.
 

ScoobyMcDoo

macrumors 65816
Nov 26, 2007
1,188
37
Austin, TX
To see it in finder, you have to jailbreak your iPhone. If you don't want to jailbreak, then there are 3rd party apps that will let you do what you want. Pretty easy to find the apps with a google search.
 

george99

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Aug 1, 2008
8
0
To see it in finder, you have to jailbreak your iPhone. If you don't want to jailbreak, then there are 3rd party apps that will let you do what you want. Pretty easy to find the apps with a google search.

Thanks for the help. I found iexplore. Seems like it will do the job.
Just curious, why would Apple let Windows users be able to browse images on the phone, but not Mac?
 

ScoobyMcDoo

macrumors 65816
Nov 26, 2007
1,188
37
Austin, TX
Just curious, why would Apple let Windows users be able to browse images on the phone, but not Mac?

Well, first of all, the iPhone is not presenting itself as a USB drive to either windows or mac, or any other OS. It presents itself as a camera. Windows (or really explorer) chooses to present that camera to you the same way it would a file system. Linux also has drivers to make the iphone (or other cameras) show up as a file system.

Apple has chosen to not allow finder to present cameras as a file system. They know better. They know how you should see cameras and you will like it. You shall use a camera app such as iPhoto.

Actually, a sort of work-around that might give you kind of close to what you want is drobbox. When you plug in your phone, it will copy all of your photos onto the cloud, as well as on your hard drive. It's not exactly browsing your phone directly, but it's pretty seamless.
 

r0k

macrumors 68040
Mar 3, 2008
3,611
75
Detroit
Thanks for the help. I found iexplore. Seems like it will do the job.
Just curious, why would Apple let Windows users be able to browse images on the phone, but not Mac?


  1. I have OSX set to "do nothing" if I connect my iPhone.
  2. I use Photostream to get my photos over for "everyday use" so I wind up dealing with iPhoto about once a quarter. It crashes almost every time. **
  3. For movies, which photostream generally ignores, I use image capture which is the closest thing I can find to treating the camera as if it were a filesystem.

** There is a workaround for getting directly to photostream photos without launching iPhoto...

Well, first of all, the iPhone is not presenting itself as a USB drive to either windows or mac, or any other OS. It presents itself as a camera. Windows (or really explorer) chooses to present that camera to you the same way it would a file system. Linux also has drivers to make the iphone (or other cameras) show up as a file system.

Apple has chosen to not allow finder to present cameras as a file system. They know better. They know how you should see cameras and you will like it. You shall use a camera app such as iPhoto.

Actually, a sort of work-around that might give you kind of close to what you want is drobbox. When you plug in your phone, it will copy all of your photos onto the cloud, as well as on your hard drive. It's not exactly browsing your phone directly, but it's pretty seamless.

While Apple may have blocked treating the camera as if it were a filesystem, for photostream users there is a way to avoid launching iPhoto to get the latest photos from your photostream...

There is a nice description of the photostream folder workaround here.

And shame on Apple for attempting to require that I launch iPhoto just to import images when I have iPhoto crash on me all the time. I have about 300 GB of photos with "copy to iPhoto Library" disabled so my iPhoto Library size is under 12 GB but iPhoto still crashes on me almost every time I try and use it.
 
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