[NA] Real-World Iphone Use

wanttaja

wanttaja

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Ron Wanttaja
Getting ready to swap out my mobile, and my wife is working on me to get an Iphone.

However, I get the impression that I-things complicate the process of swapping files from a PC to the phone and vice-versa. With my current Android phone, I plug it into the USB port on the computer, and transfer music, photos, ring and notification tones, etc. back and forth because the Android phone just acts as another storage device.

My impression with the Iphone is that I've got to use ITunes to do that transfer. Not that big of a deal...but some of the stuff I read implies that ITunes does not handle third-party files. Researching how to change a notification sound on an Iphone, for instance, the instructions often start with "Buy the sound file via ITunes...." Nuts to that, I've got the mp3 files already.

I understand that there are third-party tools that do the ITunes thing... but have also read that these can be disabled by Apple any time they feel like it.

So:

1. If I've got an MP3 sound on my (Windows) PC, what does it take to get it to an Iphone and assign it as a notification sound?

2. What does it take to transfer pictures or other sound files to the Iphone?

I actually own an Ipad, and will be able to test the processes out before springing for an Iphone.

Ron Wanttaja
 
What is this plugging in thing you speak of?

seriously, there are many ways to get images off your iphone wirelessly now, even automated if you care to.
 
I have a little Sandisk USB drive that my wife bought. It has a USB connector on one end and an Apple Lightning connector on the other end. Great for transferring stuff from my phone to my PC without iTunes, which sucks badly.

As for using an MP3 as a ringtone... haven’t tried that. I suspect Apple makes it difficult in an attempt to get people to just buy them. I don’t know. I’m sure someone else will chime in, if you’ll pardon the expression.
 
First question would be, why does wife care? You don’t tell her what brand of makeup to buy, she probably doesn’t tell you what brand of tools to buy...

About the only two reasons are integrated FaceTime and maybe device tracking. There’s easy to use replacements in the market that are cross platform for both of those.

Or... lemme guess. A BOGO deal at a carrier. That’s usually how they get split households to spend two grand instead of one. Ha.
 
Salty said:
What is this plugging in thing you speak of?

seriously, there are many ways to get images off your iphone wirelessly now, even automated if you care to.
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I worked decades in an environment where I'd be fired if I brought in a cell phone. Despite being retired for four years, my cell phone is still not a major part of my life. So "magical" methods of connection aren't that interesting to me. I know the USB cable and the Android phone works, so I just use them.

But the fundamental issue stands. Even if I get a wireless connection, will Itunes let me do the things I want to do?

Ron Wanttaja
 
denverpilot said:
First question would be, why does wife care? You don’t tell her what brand of makeup to buy, she probably doesn’t tell you what brand of tools to buy...

About the only two reasons are integrated FaceTime and maybe device tracking. There’s easy to use replacements in the market that are cross platform for both of those.

Or... lemme guess. A BOGO deal at a carrier. That’s usually how they get split households to spend two grand instead of one. Ha.
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It's kind of Borg thing. Her sister went with an Iphone and loved it. Got my wife to switch. Now my wife working to assimilate me. We changed carriers and got new phones four years ago (both Android), she switched to an Iphone last spring.

I have had several Ipads, and do like the user interface. Think the camera on my current Android phone sucks (as did the camera on my LAST Android phone) so looking for an upgrade there.

But if it's not going to let me transfer my recording of 1918's "Good Morning Mr. Zip Zip Zip" because it can't find a DRM listing, I'm not interested.

Ron Wanttaja
 
Apple apps are only available through the App Store - pre-censored for your safety.
 
Ringtone is just an m4a file. Just create the clip and change mp3 to m4a which works for me. There are programs to do that but they cost money.
 
iPhone, Android. Potayto, potahto. I was a dyed in the wool Android guy, got an iPhone fo’ free (corporate phone), got used to it. I like the handling of group text messages a whole lot better, right up until an Android user stops getting them. I do not miss the inevitable and inescapable carrier-inflicted garbage that can’t be removed, which got worse with every new Droid I bought. I don’t miss the constant “Oh, your phone can’t get that upgrade, it’s more than a month old”. Of course with Apple products that particular tune is only slightly different. Really, since I found out (here, I think) how to position the cursor wherever I want it, I have not been tempted once to go back to Android.

Well... not until I saw that effing unbelievable LG Z Fold the other day. But at $2K there’s no chance I’m switching back. Holy crap, what a piece of hardware.
 
Might also look into Apples Music Match service. Not free but it lets you upload your stuff into their cloud and distribute it to only your iThings.

I thought they killed it but someone recently said it’s still alive. YMMV.

Getting stuff into iTunes itself is easy. Point it at a directory of your stuff and tell it to import it. Settings to watch out for are what quality to import it as (can use MP3 high bitrate for example instead of their proprietary lossless thing) and whether or not to delete from original location after import and whether to keep the new directory it makes organized by artist, title, etc.

Set those before import or import from a copy so you’ve always got your originals and you’re good.

Syncing from iTunes to the iGadgets is easy after that. USB or can even set up WiFi sync and even local backups if desired. Local backups are the only true backups. ICloud backups are just a list of your apps to reinstall on a replacement device. Data is lost. It’s getting closer to parity. But Google differences between iTunes backup and iCloud backup for the latest.

If you want a true “my device is EXACTLY the same” after replacing a broken phone backup though, it has to be local. Quite a few get bit by that.

And remember. AppleCare and warranty work is always just a replacement device. See how that becomes important? :)

Hope that helps. No reason not to run it if you like the UI. You’ll find the UI much much less customizable. There’s no distinction between Home Screen and App Drawer for example as you have on Android.

Nor can you completely customize or remove all Apple apps on bottom “launcher” (in Android speak) or do much but just shove the ones you don’t use into a folder on page ninety billion on the Home Screen somewhere out of your way.
 
I have an MP3 file - converted or not - that I use for an alarm tone. Seems I used iTunes, but that was a few years ago. I've gotten photos off the phone via usb interface, but that was before Apple locked things down. Haven't tried it in a while - I just email the photos to myself if they're good enough. I believe there are other ways to transfer, including some third party packages.

Apple has made it hard enough to do what I want the I don't even come close to using the capabilities.
 
Oh something else to note. iTunes lives on in Windows land on the desktop. All the phone and iPad sync stuff was ripped out of iTunes and put into the Finder on later versions of Mac OSX.

So when searching for how to do things articles make sure you add Windows or Mac to your search terms.

They aren’t even close to the same software anymore.
 
The fact that I can't customize the iPhone app screens without having to shove dozens of apps into a "junk drawer" folder is beyond stupid to me. The ability to take songs I own and make them into alerts or ring tones is free on Android and I had to pay for it on Apple. Sorry, I'm petty much an Android guy after having both for about a decade. I currently have a Note 10 5G I bought used for $450 online and it's pretty fabulous. Having an expandable SD card memory is also pretty high up there for me.

Sent from my SM-N976U using Tapatalk
 
I don't care much about ringtones but I do write some music/songs and I like to have them on my iPhone to review them while at work. I use a FLAC app (there are many):

It works very well and is super easy to use. Best part ... FREE!

upload_2021-2-5_20-0-19.png
 
My work phone is iPhone. I had a Sony Xperia in Japan and absolutely loved that phone. I traded for iPhone 11 when I got back to the states though, just because I was tired of carrying 2 different chargers everywhere I went. I much prefer the Android interface over iOS, but once I got used to it the iPhone is OK. The newer iPhones do not have a separate ear bud jack, so you cannot listen to earbuds and charge the phone at the same time (that may have changed with the newest phone, but I don't know). I don't have any problems dragging over pics from the iPhone to a Windows desktop, but that's it. Whatever is in the DCIM can be dragged out from the phone. If there is a way to drag out other files, I am not aware of it.

I'd still rather have my Xperia.


That's only my opinion though, so take it for what it is. Play with your wife's phone for a while and see if you like it.
 
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DaleB said:
Well... not until I saw that effing unbelievable LG Z Fold the other day. But at $2K there’s no chance I’m switching back. Holy crap, what a piece of hardware.
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I have both the fold and the flip.I like them both and it's amazing seeing iphone users ask me lots of questions about my phones when I'm in public. Sad that they are all stuck with the same device with no ability to be individuals. At least in the Android world you can really explore a lot of different devices and see what works well and what really stands out.
 
NJP_MAN said:
I have both the fold and the flip.I like them both and it's amazing seeing iphone users ask me lots of questions about my phones when I'm in public. Sad that they are all stuck with the same device with no ability to be individuals. At least in the Android world you can really explore a lot of different devices and see what works well and what really stands out.
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This is one of the reasons that for testing both a local rural carrier and a pile of security stuff for work, I chose an LG G8X dual display. It's far more interesting having two slabs of glass than one if you're stuck with a glass slab like everyone else's glass slab.

Its been fun to play with. May even turn it into the daily driver (swap phone numbers). Also learned tonight it does HDMI and Android Desktop Mode just fine, so I'll have to order up an $18 USB-C hub for it and have poor man's Samsung Dex.

This thing is really underrated. At $380 for an open box returned one locally, also nearly impossible to beat.

Apparently there was some massive sale of these thru a discount place into India and they're all gaga for them over there. I'm finding all sorts of tricks and tips for it on YT from all the tech dudes in India with like 300 subscribers, practicing their English on their tech channels. Haha. It's cool.
 
I don’t think I’ve plugged my iphone in to a computer since about 2014. iCloud is $15/mo or something like that for a couple terabytes. When I got a new phone a few months ago it automatically transferred everything to my new phone, passwords, apps, and everything. Pretty amazing.

The new iPhones also take fantastic pictures, which beats lugging around a bunch of camera gear to get shots like this.

CCC78A45-57AB-43E1-A4AD-2856A31A3F46.jpeg
 
SoonerAviator said:
The ability to take songs I own and make them into alerts or ring tones is free on Android and I had to pay for it on Apple.
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How did you pay Apple? I made mine in GarageBand for free.

Back to any hassle importing music - I have a large iTunes music library. It consists of albums ripped from CDs, albums downloaded from Napster and Limewire and maybe a couple bought on iTunes. That said, I rarely if ever access it. We paid for an Apple Music subscription @ $14.95/month for the family plan, but that’s now included in our $30/month Apple One subscription that includes Apple TV+, Fitness+, Arcade, News+ and 2 TB storage that up to five “family members” can share. Lots of other ways to get music online, via Amazon Prime, Pandora and others.

The music selection available on Apple Music is huge, and constantly updated with almost all the latest releases. If one is worried about access to music when offline, it’s trivially easy to download selected songs, albums or playlists to your iPhone while online to listen to while offline. I don’t think I’ve used iTunes to move music around for at least 5 years, probably a lot more.

Anyway, unless you have some really obscure bootleg tapes or the like, getting music from the cloud and only loading select music to your iPhone is an easy and elegant solution.
 
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FastEddieB said:
How did you pay Apple? I made mine in GarageBand for free.

Back to any hassle importing music - I have a large iTunes music library. It consists of albums ripped from CDs, albums downloaded from Napster and Limewire and maybe a couple bought on iTunes. That said, I rarely if ever access it. We paid for an Apple Music subscription @ $14.95/month for the family plan, but that’s now included in our $30/month Apple One subscription that includes Apple TV+, Fitness+, Arcade, News+ and 2 TB storage that up to five “family members” can share. Lots of other ways to get music online, via Amazon Prime, Pandora and others.

The music selection available on Apple Music is huge, and constantly updated with almost all the latest releases. If one is worried about access to music when offline, it’s trivially easy to download selected songs, albums or playlists to your iPhone while online to listen to while offline. I don’t think I’ve used iTunes to move music around for at least 5 years, probably a lot more.

Anyway, unless you have some really obscure bootleg tapes or the like, getting music from the cloud and only loading select music to your iPhone is an easy and elegant solution.
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Precisely my point. If I want access to MY music, I have to pay Apple or another service to download it. Then I have to pay them for cloud storage, and I have to have an unlimited data plan to retrieve that data from the cloud. Then I have to be in a reliable cell signal area to utilize it unless I download it to the device directly, which has fixed internal storage.

Apple is really good at making you sign up for services in order to allow you access to your digital data. Samsung and others offer similar services but are less blatant about forcing you into their ecosystems.

As far as making ringtones, I didn't know anything about it and just needed a basic mp3 editor to clip the section I wanted to use. Everything that had decent reviews costsmed money or forced you to pay full price if you actually wanted to save the clip as a ringtone format. I was able to download several different editors on Google Play for free.

Lastly, iTunes is crap as a media library and I can't stand dealing with it. Despite Microsoft putting out a lot of iffy software, Windows media player is pretty darn good for that purpose.

Sent from my SM-N976U using Tapatalk
 
If you have an iPhone this app is worth installing (and it's free). From the article/app ad:

iBFD uses the iPhone's 3 axis Gyro sensor as its primary sensor. Pitch and Roll angles are calculated using the Gyro data and the same algorithm as strap down Inertial Reference Systems (IRS), therefore it doesn’t suffer from a Singularity at pitch angle +/-90 degree.

iPhone's 3 axis Accelerometer and GPS data are used as auxiliary sensors to improve accuracy and prevent Gyro drift error accumulation, similar to the approach used in a real IRS.
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https://appadvice.com/app/ibfdmonochrome/1413179229

750x750bb.jpeg
 
Thanks for the comments, folks.

So far, I'm basically just seeing confirmation on my impression that the Iphone throws up barriers to customization and access. Most of them have workarounds (some of them cost money), but I'm not that interested in toying with a phone that much. Being trained against their use in my employed days, having good access to desktops/pads in my retired life, there's just no appeal in expending the effort to get an Iphone do what I want.

At that point, the camera is the only positive point, but I've got a good compact camera that tends to ride around with me as well as a decent SLR for more-serious work.

Ron Wanttaja
 
It’s an attitude thing. Apple’s attitude has always seemed to be more, “Don’t try to do things your way. We’re so much smarter than you, we know what you really want. Just do it our way. If we don’t give you a way to do it, then you just shouldn’t do it.”
 
wanttaja said:
Thanks for the comments, folks.

So far, I'm basically just seeing confirmation on my impression that the Iphone throws up barriers to customization and access. Most of them have workarounds (some of them cost money), but I'm not that interested in toying with a phone that much. Being trained against their use in my employed days, having good access to desktops/pads in my retired life, there's just no appeal in expending the effort to get an Iphone do what I want.

At that point, the camera is the only positive point, but I've got a good compact camera that tends to ride around with me as well as a decent SLR for more-serious work.

Ron Wanttaja
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That's a pretty good summary.
I have an iPad mainly for ForeFlight. You can transfer your music to your iPAd, using iTunes, no charge. However, getting anything else in/out of the phone is a pain because it also goes through iTunes. PDFs, ebooks, GPS track files, all go through iTunes.
 
DaleB said:
It’s an attitude thing. Apple’s attitude has always seemed to be more, “Don’t try to do things your way. We’re so much smarter than you, we know what you really want. Just do it our way. If we don’t give you a way to do it, then you just shouldn’t do it.”
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That's sure what it seems like. It might be true. OTOH, most things just work without a lot of (or any) hassle. A lot of people are happy with the way Apple does things, and it's good for them. I have an Android phone for myself, I have an iPhone for work, so I see it from both angles.
 
Cap'n Jack said:
That's sure what it seems like. It might be true. OTOH, most things just work without a lot of (or any) hassle. A lot of people are happy with the way Apple does things, and it's good for them. I have an Android phone for myself, I have an iPhone for work, so I see it from both angles.
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I have two iPhones, my wife has an iPad, I have an Android tablet that predates the latest iPhone. When I first switched, the iPhone was irritating as hell. Now I’m avoiding the Android tablet for everything except one or two apps. I love the concept of Android, but hate what every vendor whose products I’ve tried has done to it.
 
DaleB said:
I have two iPhones, my wife has an iPad, I have an Android tablet that predates the latest iPhone. When I first switched, the iPhone was irritating as hell. Now I’m avoiding the Android tablet for everything except one or two apps. I love the concept of Android, but hate what every vendor whose products I’ve tried has done to it.
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LoL. I wrote an app to capture sales leads at smaller trade shows for Android. I did this because there are lead capture programs, some of them are free. But all the ones I saw wanted to store my leads in their cloud service, and charge me for it. Nope. My data. The lead management programs running on iOS were the same.

People wanted reprints of my poster presentations describing my research, but they writing made it difficult to send the reprints to them. Now they just type their name and e-mail into a phone or tablet. I found it worked at the booth, too, and the number of usable leads is 100% now- we used to write them manually.
I need no permissions from the OS because I just save the data as tab-delimited text, like old school BASIC. But it works. I just transfer the data into Excel and send it back every night for the leads to be processed, or I send the reprint during the meeting. I've used it for a year before the meetings got shut down last year. I'm thinking of selling it for a buck. If I need to upgrade to a new version, another buck.
 
DaleB said:
It’s an attitude thing. Apple’s attitude has always seemed to be more, “Don’t try to do things your way. We’re so much smarter than you, we know what you really want. Just do it our way. If we don’t give you a way to do it, then you just shouldn’t do it.”
Click to expand...

hmmmm. I've had the same impression of Microsoft's attitude....especially wrt interoperability/compatibility.
 
I've found a very easy way to transfer files back and forth between my i devices and my PCs. My Asus router has a USB3 port on it, and I've attached a USB SSD to that port. The router makes that drive available to my internal LAN, and I use the files app which comes built into IOS to mount the router SSD drive as a storage location. It's easy to move files and pictures back and forth to/from that drive, and I've also got the drive mounted on my PCs as a networked drive. No extra software required to move pictures and other files from the iphone and ipad to my PC ecosystem.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Pro
 
Bob Noel said:
hmmmm. I've had the same impression of Microsoft's attitude....especially wrt interoperability/compatibility.
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Absolutely. And Mickeysoft has always been my dead last choice for pretty much anything.
 
Went to buy a new phone today...T-Mobile store.

Asked about Samsung phones. They had one for $180, and the next most expensive one was $800. I asked the salesman what the difference was.

His response: "Everything."

Sounded like POA. Strictly correct, but nothing one could really base a decision on.

And no, I didn't walk out of there with a new phone.

Ron Wanttaja
 
With iStuff everything that's possible (i.e. Apple approved) is stupid easy and everything else is completely impossible. With Android you can do anything but it may or may not be easy.

Google's Pixel phones have great cameras and they have a lot less bloatware than a lot of other phones, or at least the 3 (what I have) did.
 
If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. Sounds like you like Android, why change.
 
bflynn said:
If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. Sounds like you like Android, why change.
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Simply put, you buy the device that fulfills your needs, if you need a full functionality of FF or GP, get the iPhone.
I’m thinking of going Max version to replace my old mini and iPhone in the future.
 
MooneyDriver78 said:
Simply put, you buy the device that fulfills your needs...
Click to expand...

I was about to say something similar...

If your phone does what you need it to do, and occasionally makes you smile, congratulations! You have the right phone.

If your phone doesn’t do what you need it to do, and occasionally aggravates you, guess what? You might consider changing.

I’m very happy with my iPhone 12 Pro Max. The Apple ecosystem is not for everyone, but the way my phone, Apple Watch, Apple TV, IPad, Mac Mini and Apple One service all pretty seamlessly integrate works for me. NOT saying an Android phone can’t be set up to do something similar, or better, or cheaper - so just go with whatever you like. The world is better for the competition.
 
I'm considering the switch to an iphone also. Question for those in the know....can I eliminate the carrier bloatware by buying directly from Apple, then getting it activated, or will Verizon just put it on when I take it in for activation? Thanks!

Jim
 
Jim Rosenow said:
I'm considering the switch to an iphone also. Question for those in the know....can I eliminate the carrier bloatware by buying directly from Apple, then getting it activated, or will Verizon just put it on when I take it in for activation? Thanks!

Jim
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I've got AT&T and my son has Verizon and they've never put bloatware/adware on the phone. II've never heard of an iPhone having that crap put on it. There is nothing added beyond what comes with the iPhone straight from Apple.
 
Got some with my Verizon LG-G7 Android. I've disabled most of it, but find annoying. Thanks for the response!

Jim
 
I dunno, I haven't had so much trouble getting things on the iPhone, but I don't have the 1918 Mr. Zippy whatever to contend with either. I only ever got a cell phone to placate Mrs. Steingar, who raised the very good argument that if I was going to go out and do something insanely dangerous like flying an airplane I should have one in case things go south. To be honest, keeping Mrs. Steingar happy is far, far, far more important than having ancient recordings on my IPhone. But that's just me.
 
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