Windows PC to iPad

[nashvillebill]

So... I was given an almost-new iPad. Nice size, good colors, looks neat. After some minor wailing and gnashing of teeth, I finally got it connected to my wifi at home, so I can get on the Internet with it. Good start.

Note: I've been using DOS/Windows since the mid-80's. So by now I'm pretty well entrenched in the Windows scheme of things. I have tons of schematics, for example, under a Peavey sub-directory, with a folder under it for "Triumph 60" for example, and in that folder will be schematics, pictures, Word documents, perhaps a spreadsheet. My whole computer is set up that way: in the Band sub-directory, I have various folders, including one for "song charts" with pdf's, Word documents, perhaps a jpg or TIF or two.

Okay, now I've got this nice little iPad. I figured it would be great to copy all my schematics and song charts and tube books and whatever onto it, I could take it down into the basement workshop when working on an amp, or out to a practice where I could call up the song charts. Only...it doesn't appear I can do this. The iPad (with the iOS) does not seem to be capable of organizing stuff under directories and folders with various stuff in there. Yep I could slowly and laboriously use the clumsy iTunes and the USB cable to copy the PDF's...to where? All lumped together, like it did my mp3's?? Yep, THAT's really helpful to have a couple of thousand PDF's all lumped together. Or pictures, or whatever.

I dunno. I fail to see the Apple scheme of things. Am I missing something? Looks like they just made this thing to play songs or videos or take pictures or get on Facebook.

Any iPad experts out there who can help me make this thing do some real work? I need folders set up like Windows, and to be able to put files of all types in each folder, and call them up easily. Not keep stuff lumped under an "app".

 

[drumsnbass]

I have an iPad as well and your assessment is pretty well on.

Best you can do is make them all PDF files, rename them all in a logical grouping scheme, and import them.

 

[Alkali Ike]

I loves my iPad. I'm using it to enter this reply. But you have described very well why I can't dump my Windows PC. And why a Microsoft Surface Pro 3 would likely be more way useful to me for actual work.

 

[fisticuffs]

Do you have a dropbox, Google Drive or OneDrive account? Copy your folder to it. Done. iPads have lots of apps to open all those file types and Dropbox will move them for you or can probably open them itself.

 

[Rusty Chainsaw]

+1 on Dropbox. Easiest sync job ever. Download it for your PC, install, then copy your stuff to the Dropbox directory, and the rest happens automatically.
There's apps on the iPad that will open almost all file types now, and there's a new version of M$ Word for the iPad that will open files directly from Dropbox for editing.

 

[Pilgrim]

Dropbox is a great idea, and for another reason as well: you won't fill up the memory on your iPad with files you use only occasionally. Use the cloud, young Jedi.

 

[nashvillebill]

Cloud won't work, grasshopper. I need to access files where there won't be Internet access.

Not only that, I have many files and some of them are quite large (100 meg). Uploading them to Dropbox, and then downloading them via wifi to the iPad, would take a long time. Makes more sense to merely connect the USB cable from the iPad to the PC.

 

[fisticuffs]

You can store files locally in Dropbox on the iPad. Do it all before you lose internet access (which you might find in unexpected places anyway). there are LOTS of other file browsers though. All those cloud ser vices are file browsers and can store files locally as well as in the cloud.
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It's not that Apple doesn't want you using these things in your traditional way it's that your traditional way has been replaced. Managing files and folders is just done differently in modern environments and on mobile devices. Cloud sync being the big one but lots of other software now just does a great job of removing that step. You don;t need to worry about where your photos are located on the drive if your photo software does a good job managing your library. If you want a specific file or files you can export them from Lightroom for example, or iPhoto whatever. Music, same thing. No need to create and name folders and drag and drop files. That's what the music player app (iTunes or whatever) is doing for you.

 

[nashvillebill]

No, I disagree. The "traditional" way of files within folders WORKS. It's worked long before computers were even invented. You were working on XYZ project, stuff went into the XYZ project folder. Faxes, telegrams, pictures, letters, all went into the XYZ folder. You want info on XYZ, it's in the XYZ folder. It would be extremely impractical to store all the telegrams from all the projects together: XYZ, and ABC, and DEF, all together, and then all faxes together, and then all the letters. Gee was that correspondence a letter? Or a fax? Or a telegram? Better look all three places...now what order were they in? Yet that's the way Apple thinks they should be!

I don't want stuff on the Cloud. I want files ON MY IPAD. I don't want to transfer them twice (once to the cloud and then a second time to the iPad). I want them on my iPad permanently so I don't have to "download them before I lose internet access". I want them neatly organized where I can find them--- I want info on the Fender Princeton Chorus, I look in a folder called Fender Princeton Chorus and voila--there's a schematic, and pictures, and several other file formats. I may not know if a schematic was a PDF or a JPG or a TIFF or a BMP, I want to find it easily under a relevant folder.

I guess I should sell the iPad and buy a Microsoft tablet. It does real work, none of these clumsy workarounds.

 

[fisticuffs]

I disagree that they are clumsy or that they are workarounds. Those files have other identifying data embedded into them. It's a database essentially. All records can live in the same place and still be easily sorted, searched and identified. Your faxes can live in the same pile provided they are properly identified and you have the tools to sort them out. AND as previously stated you absolutely can mange your files the way you are used to. There are hundreds of apps both cloud and not that will store your files. An iPad isn't a computer replacement yet but whether you realize it or not you don't always need a computer and a computer isn't always the right tool for the job.

 

[MJ5150]

Could you jailbreak it and install a file manager app?

-Mike

 

[fisticuffs]

You don't need to jailbreak.
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[nashvillebill]

....whether you realize it or not you don't always need a computer and a computer isn't always the right tool for the job.

This sounds like the typical Apple mentality. Telling ME what I need.

No, I'm the user. I have been using computers since the 1970's, back with IBM punch cards and FORTRAN through a compiler. I know my needs. I need to keep many file formats available under simple folder structures where I can locate them easily. And clumsy workarounds--yes they ARE clumsy, compared to merely sticking something on a USB flash drive--don't cut it. Storing files under their particular app and sorting them to find them is not efficient. I have hundreds, perhaps thousands, of various documents.

A Windows Surface tablet? Has a USB port. Lets me keep files the traditional way. I don't have to go to my "App Store" to download stuff.

 

[Thunderscreech]

The only problem with the Windows Tablet is Windows 8/8.1, IMHO. Of course I think Windows 7 was the finest they ever made, with XP the second finest.

I also use a Mac, but I was raised on Windows.

 

[fisticuffs]

This sounds like the typical Apple mentality. Telling ME what I need.

No, I'm the user. I have been using computers since the 1970's, back with IBM punch cards and FORTRAN through a compiler. I know my needs. I need to keep many file formats available under simple folder structures where I can locate them easily. And clumsy workarounds--yes they ARE clumsy, compared to merely sticking something on a USB flash drive--don't cut it. Storing files under their particular app and sorting them to find them is not efficient. I have hundreds, perhaps thousands, of various documents.

A Windows Surface tablet? Has a USB port. Lets me keep files the traditional way. I don't have to go to my "App Store" to download stuff.

You are getting what I'm saying...
A Dropbox folder on your PC is one less step than your USB drive. A Dropbox account is just a USB drive in the sky. You save these files there, in the same structure you have them now and they will always stay insync on all of your devices, and you can access them from any internet browser. To me, your way (regardless of how long you've been doing it) is the inefficient way with lots of tedious extra steps. I don;t know how you can know what you need when you seem to be so ignorant of the options? I guess the steam engine was what some people needed too...

Have fun with your Surface tablet. I'm guessing you'll be back here complaining about it shortly. I had one, they aren't great. they suck as computers AND as tablets. At least the iPad is good at what it is.

 

[MJ5150]

I love my Dell Venue, Windows 8.1 Pro.

-MIke

 

[Selta]

Have fun with your Surface tablet. I'm guessing you'll be back here complaining about it shortly. I had one, they aren't great. they suck as computers AND as tablets. At least the iPad is good at what it is.

Absolutely no need to be so cold/rude here. The OP does not want to use Dropbox... it's not for him, so stop trying to convince him he should use it. I completely understand his position... if you're on DSL or similar, uploading and downloading large files constantly is not idea. Nor does he want to use an app to manage his files. I can relate to that, as most have a very disorganized back end on things, which make working on the file system level a complete PITA. If the iPad just natively had a nice folder structure it'd be fine for OP, I believe. But it doesn't, therefore, it's not a good product for him.
I do feel the Surface would be good for him. It'll have Windows on it, which he is likely already familiar with, so he can setup the folder structure as he wants. He may need to get acquainted with Windows 8.1, but anyone that spends a decent amount of time with it will get their bearings pretty quickly.

 

[nashvillebill]

I have a couple of major problems with the Cloud computing concept. First, it depends upon your ability to access the Internet. No Internet service means no Cloud access--and there's a ton of places still around that do not have cell phone coverage (furthermore, I'm just using the iPad on my home wifi, not on a cell phone plan).

Second, do we *really* want all our documents out there where the whole world potentially could get to them? The "Cloud Computing" concept has really been around for decades, and despite the hype, never has taken off. It's an outgrowth of the "dumb terminal" concept used before PC's were dirt cheap.

I have used Dropbox many times at work for transmitting files that are too big to email: it works...but transferring large numbers of files via Dropbox is slow. And in the end, I still would be faced with the organizational issue.

For now, I may just try to transfer PDF's across with their iTunes. Then I can make and organize libraries with their iBooks. Still, unless I convert everything into PDF, I won't have everything I need. Meh. I will give the iPad a chance, but it's not looking as promising as I had hoped when it was given to me.

 

[INTP]

I'm of two minds of the subject of hierarchical organization of data on physical media vs. having everything virtually addressable via metadata. In a sense the file path(folder)/location is just a pointer to a location on a physical media, and the path(folder) isn't really a physical location (although the physical drive limits the location down a bit. It isn't really a location, it just seems like one to users.

But that's only one one way to access files, and it happens to be static and limited. It also doesn't scale well, because when you get too many folders, it becomes harder and harder to find what you're looking for. In a way, searching in windows explorer helps but it sure is slow, because it has to rebuild the index repeatedly.

But relying on metadata has different trade-offs, mostly that entering all the metadata for every file requires effort on it's own. I've worked on content management systems at work where it asked people to put in tags to help locate files later, but almost nobody did (instead, they kept wanting to add folders, which the admins resisted.)

If apple provides this service for your sound files by selling them to you on iTunes, then they are adding value but also making it hard to resist their way of doing things. Yes, you can do things yourself, but it isn't easy.

I suspect that cloud/virtual storage is inevitable, but it's still not perfect.

Ultimately, I don't want to "have" information. I want to use it (e.g. read, listen, view, etc). If the technology provides the utility at less administrative cost than saving on my hard drive, then it would be silly not to switch.

 

[nashvillebill]

I have worked in corporations where hundreds of folks were allowed to create folders and directories willy-nilly, and the result was pure chaos. No hierarchy, tremendous duplication, and searching was slow with too many unfiltered results.

Here, though, I've got the advantage that I'm the only one creating and accessing files on my system. I grew up in libraries with real books, and the Dewey Decimal System, plus I'm an engineer, so it was pretty straightforward to create a hierarchy that fits my needs. Note: I'm not talking about just some songs--if all I had to deal with were a few thousand songs on mp3, any media player out there would sort by artist, song name, or whatever.

And again, I need to access my files where there is no Internet access. I need physical storage. Anybody that keeps mentioning "cloud" or "don't need to save on my hard drive"...YOU'RE NOT LISTENING! If I'm in the middle of a New Mexico desert, I want to view my documents.

So here's an actual example. The other day, somebody posted on pickups for a Yamaha RBX760A bass. Hey I've got one, let me see. I click on "My Documents". Then I click on my "Music Gear" subdirectory. Then I click on my "Yamaha" folder. Then I click on my "RBX760A" folder...and there we are, a few pictures, a sketch of the controls, and some files with funny names cause that's what they were called when I downloaded them from Yamaha, but the one with ES in the title might just be the electrical schematic. Boom. 5 clicks and the schematic is open. Less than 30 seconds start to finish. No typing, no searching under metadata. And if I want to look at the pictures, hey they are there too, I had forgotten I took those of the inside.

Okay, now what if the same documents were not stored in some sort of hierarchy? Okay, I do a search...what for, "Yamaha RBX760a bass schematic", huh a couple of thousand hits and none of them are actually the right one. If everything is stored under the file type (app) okay *maybe* I find the PDF's but I probably forgot all about the pictures (JPG's) so those would be basically lost.

Now don't get me wrong. The iPad looks great for web browsing, or Facebook, or playing songs, or taking/viewing selfies. It could have the potential to be useful for folks like me, if it just supported a few simple things that are standard with Windows.