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Can you edit RAW files on the iPad now?

I'm pretty sure it's been possible for a good while now to be able to edit RAW files on the iPad but I am happy to stand corrected.
The bigger question is would you want to with the CPU & memory it takes. Still, it would be nice to be able to at least transfer/house them if you wanted. I currently use the WIFI function in my Canon for this, shooting in RAW/jpeg then just transfer the photos to the iPhone for quick viewing/sharing and saving. Then do all of my RAW workflow on my MBP.
 
Apple has no interest in supporting high end photography.

Always worked with iPad.
I knew when I bought it, that it wouldn't work. Reports online, and apple support said non-support.
It sucked, and petty of Apple, but I still bought it knowing this as I got benefit with iPad.


AWESOME!

Because there is no CF to Lightning adapter? Hate to break it to you but CF is a dying/dead breed of storage medium. It's great and all but there are much better alternatives - SD/Micro SD, etc. Speeds rival that of CF. Smaller and more versatile. No pins to break, bend or misalign.
 
I would just say "Awesome", but one word responses aren't allowed.
Tell me about it. You can't say "cool", but you can say "that is cool". I would talk about a specific time I've run into this problem, but I can't talk about specific instances of moderation or else I'll be banned.
 
Apple has no interest in supporting high end photography.

Just for fun, I did a search on a camera chains website and one of the pro-grade cameras I found (an $11,000 camera) operates on SD cards.

It seems some of CF or SD.

I also have a mid-range camera and it uses SD.

I see CF being like the old 30 pin iPod plug.. Big and bulky for no real gain.
 
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Useless to photographers until the iPad has a file system. I need to be able to move and organise RAW files between external drives and folders. Absolutely no support for this on iPad 'Pro'. One wonders.

iOS will probably never have what you think of as a 'file system' and even though I am an IT professional and power user, I hope Apple stick to their guns on that vision.

The file system is as outdated as the DOS interface and even though it took people a while to embrace the GUI interface all those years ago, it happened. Apple have implemented very clever, and more importantly 'secure' ways to share files between apps so you no longer need to have copies of copies of copies of files everywhere. You can simply use whichever tool is best for any given scenario.

It's not perfect yet by any means but if Apple were to 'give up' and just give us access to the raw filesystem it would be a great shame. Fortunately they have shown many times that they will stick to their guns (eg. floppy drives, optical drives, non-removable batteries) and generally the rest of the world catch up with their thinking eventually. I'm sure this will be the same situation.
 
I'm sure they will come up with something and you'll be sorry you asked. :)

I have always been of the belief that iPad should be running a slightly adapted version of iOS, aimed more at taking advantage of the real estate of an iPad including its place as a productivity device. Running stock iOS just isn't working anymore. Perfect for iPhone and iPod touch, but iPad needs a little something more. We had better see these changes in iOS 10 otherwise Apple are really skipping a beat.
 
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iOS will probably never have what you think of as a 'file system' and even though I am an IT professional and power user, I hope Apple stick to their guns on that vision.

The file system is as outdated as the DOS interface and even though it took people a while to embrace the GUI interface all those years ago, it happened. Apple have implemented very clever, and more importantly 'secure' ways to share files between apps so you no longer need to have copies of copies of copies of files everywhere. You can simply use whichever tool is best for any given scenario.

It's not perfect yet by any means but if Apple were to 'give up' and just give us access to the raw filesystem it would be a great shame. Fortunately they have shown many times that they will stick to their guns (eg. floppy drives, optical drives, non-removable batteries) and generally the rest of the world catch up with their thinking eventually. I'm sure this will be the same situation.

Well I'm not asking them to let us tinker with the inner root files deep in the OS. I just want a way to view files and folders on an external device and move photos between and into these folders and external storage devices. That's all I'm asking for.
 
Can you edit RAW files on the iPad now?

Photos will transfer and store RAW files in their pure form, but I believe iOS won't edit a RAW file. As far as I know, iOS extracts the JPEG preview within the RAW file and that's what you see/edit if you use apps to edit your images. I don't think RAW files are directly editable on iOS, taking full advantage of the data they provide.
 
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iOS will probably never have what you think of as a 'file system' and even though I am an IT professional and power user, I hope Apple stick to their guns on that vision.

The file system is as outdated as the DOS interface and even though it took people a while to embrace the GUI interface all those years ago, it happened. Apple have implemented very clever, and more importantly 'secure' ways to share files between apps so you no longer need to have copies of copies of copies of files everywhere. You can simply use whichever tool is best for any given scenario.

It's not perfect yet by any means but if Apple were to 'give up' and just give us access to the raw filesystem it would be a great shame. Fortunately they have shown many times that they will stick to their guns (eg. floppy drives, optical drives, non-removable batteries) and generally the rest of the world catch up with their thinking eventually. I'm sure this will be the same situation.
The GUI that sits on top of DOS (Windows) is still just an interface into the file system, which still exists today.
 
iOS already have a "file system", it's called the Document Picker. It has existed since iOS 8 and apps need to update to support it, so users can have a single copy being used between apps.

Source: https://developer.apple.com/library...ogrammingGuide/Introduction/Introduction.html

Apple just needs to update iOS to add the external drive as a provider to Document Picker and a lot of us will be happy and can focus on getting the app developers to support Document Picker instead.
 
OK let's assume it works with ANY modern SD card. What do you do with 256GB of photos on your iPhone? Obviously you don't upload then you your iPhone as no iPhone has that much memory. You don't even upload them to your iCloud based photos library as no one could stand to wait whale 256GB of data is uploaded over the Internet, your iPhone battery might die before the upload finished and you can't plug the phone into a charger while the dongle is in place.

OK I think this leave just browsing the images in the SD card and perhaps editing/deleting some of them or being very selective in what images you upload.

But does the iPhone have a way to browse the images on the SD card other than just scrolling up and down. That would take a LONG time on a 256GB card.

Next question. If the images on the SD card are Nikon .NEF (RAW) files can I view them on my phone?
Obviously I'm not importing 256gb worth of photos... I have a 256gb card that I fill up on a weekly basis while traveling/shooting sports and would like to import just a few select ones.
 
Well I'm not asking them to let us tinker with the inner root files deep in the OS. I just want a way to view files and folders on an external device and move photos between and into these folders and external storage devices. That's all I'm asking for.

I think Apple will get closer to this eventually. The iCloud drive, problematic as it is currently, is sort of Apple's first foray into this area. With Apple's also-new implementation of coherence features between iOS and OSX, I can also see them eventually allowing an iOS device access to browse folders on an in-range OSX device. Probably will never have access to folders on iOS outside of one "master" folder, but I think the ability to browse them elsewhere could happen.
 
I am aware and have used this app. Extremely limited functionality against desktop Lightroom and does not solve the issue mentioned in my original post. All this does is sync photos between mobile Lightroom and desktop Lightroom.

So you'd expect a hypothetical iOS file system to do more than what Lightroom does?

What features would that include? I thought Lightroom did "move and organize" photos, as you asked for. It doesn't?
 
I haven't been able to test this out yet myself, but users in this thread have recently discovered that the older lightning SD card reader indeed has started to work with their iPhones. I think they're all running 9.2 beta.

I just bought one of the older adapters to go with my new iPad Pro. It works great on the iPad, but when I tried plugging it into my iPhone 6, I got the "This accessory is not supported by this iPhone" message. This news about iOS 9.2 sounds encouraging though. I'd really like to use this adapter with both my phone and my iPad.
 
The GUI that sits on top of DOS (Windows) is still just an interface into the file system, which still exists today.

That is correct, all OSes have a file system including iOS. What people want is a user-accessible GUI to store documents in and to navigate globally in all apps, which already exists in a way via Document Picker APIs.

However, it is incorrect that file system will never happen in iOS since first of all, iOS have one, it is just not accessible to users as each app is sandboxed and users cannot escape it. Jailbreak the iOS device and you can navigate its file system just like on OS X with its terminal. There are Finder-like apps you can build on a jailbroken device to match the same GUI experience.

An OS must have a file system to organize files with and to understand the structure of it.

I think Apple will get closer to this eventually. The iCloud drive, problematic as it is currently, is sort of Apple's first foray into this area. With Apple's also-new implementation of coherence features between iOS and OSX, I can also see them eventually allowing an iOS device access to browse folders on an in-range OSX device. Probably will never have access to folders on iOS outside of one "master" folder, but I think the ability to browse them elsewhere could happen.

They already have, it's called Document Pickers and third party providers can add extensions to it. Apps must update to support it and from there, each app can let users select files in folders in each provider including iCloud Drive. Apple can add the external drive as a provider.
 
So I'm gonna have to re-buy all my lightning cables because they are only capable of USB 2 speeds?
If you need USB 3 speeds, I almost never plug my phone in other than to charge. Maybe it would be nice for backups...but I just use iCloud. For the iPad Pro it would be nice to transfer files onto it, but you still have to go through iTunes so I tend to avoid that.

iOS will probably never have what you think of as a 'file system' and even though I am an IT professional and power user, I hope Apple stick to their guns on that vision.

The file system is as outdated as the DOS interface and even though it took people a while to embrace the GUI interface all those years ago, it happened. Apple have implemented very clever, and more importantly 'secure' ways to share files between apps so you no longer need to have copies of copies of copies of files everywhere. You can simply use whichever tool is best for any given scenario.

It's not perfect yet by any means but if Apple were to 'give up' and just give us access to the raw filesystem it would be a great shame. Fortunately they have shown many times that they will stick to their guns (eg. floppy drives, optical drives, non-removable batteries) and generally the rest of the world catch up with their thinking eventually. I'm sure this will be the same situation.

Are you using the same iOS 9 as I am? Because Apple's system of "Open In..." generates endless copies of files, with no way to properly manage them.

Take this incredibly rudimentary scenario. I use two apps to edit a file (Because one is good at one thing, and another is good at another.) We'll say we are modifying a PDF file.

- Use dropbox to "Open In..." app A
- Edit inside of app A, "Open In..." app B
- Edit inside of app B, "Open In..." Dropbox

How many copies of the file are there now? The answer is 3. Dropbox has the latest copy, App B has the latest copy as well (identical to the dropbox version, unless you edit it on another machine) and app A has an outdated copy missing changes from app B edits.

In what universe is this simpler than having App A and App B able to access the single copy of a file on dropbox?

And lets not get into the most obvious downfall of the iOS "file system", lack of external storage options.

I own an iPad Pro and I love using it, but it is years away from being able to replace a laptop for me, even for my hobby of photo/video editing. Primarily because of how difficult it is to move data to/from/within the OS.
 
Considering most high-end cameras are abandoning CF cards, I don't think this is a true statement.

I don't think I'd be going out on a limb to say that the Canon 5D Mark III is probably the single most entrenched pro-camera in use today in terms of an established working user base. Guess what - it's got a dual slot SD/CF slot. Not only does the CF slot write faster ( which means it's a 'best results' slot for video) but if you hand your client JPEGS on the SD card you still need to get the RAW files off the CF card. Abandon the old format all you want but do us the favor of waiting until a new standard has been taken over much less being introduced (we don't have a 5D Mark IV yet).

So this is what I think was meant by abandoning the Pro market.
 
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You need to have ios 9.2 to use sd card reader with your iphone! Finally!! And it should work with the old adapter as well.
 
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I wonder if they are correct in saying this is for the iphone. As the last model would not work with iphones.
 
Useless to photographers until the iPad has a file system. I need to be able to move and organise RAW files between external drives and folders. Absolutely no support for this on iPad 'Pro'. One wonders.

While not exactly what you are looking for, ShutterSnitch is the best app for Photographers. If there was a version for Android, I'd put down a lot of $ for it to use on my S2 tablet regardless of access of their file system.

On my iPad, I import images via WiFi from my Transcend cards. Takes a while with RAW images but it works. From there I can export to camera roll as needed or to Dropbox, FTP, etc etc. Lots of options - too many to list here. But usually I'll just mark my stars and when I get home, I move everything to my Mac with the ShutterSnitch import tool or FTP. It syncs your star ratings with LR also, which is nice.

With the new USB cable and the return of mass selection, it makes it easier/faster(?). iOS only allows you to import direct to camera roll so I could import to the camera roll and then import to ShutterSnitch. Delete from Camera Roll (hooray for mass select with finger drag!) and do what I need to do from there in SS.

Again, not the file system you're looking for but it is a good work around considering. It's still better than anything I've found for Android, TBH. I have ES File Explorer Pro and ShutterSnitch is much better for photos. And for the record, I quite like that tablet - I wish it could view & edit RAW files natively though like on iOS.
 
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