[raider]

Hi guys, could those of you who own an airport express let me know if it is possible at all to copy photos from the iPad to a USB drive connected to the device?

Thanks

[boriscleto]

Not directly, no. You would have to transfer the photos to a computer first, then to the flash drive.

[raider]

Not directly, no. You would have to transfer the photos to a computer first, then to the flash drive.

Thanks boriscleto...so from the iPad, i guess you are able to see the USB drive but unable to copy the photos? Can u browse photos already on the USB drive using the iPad via Airport express then?

[boriscleto]

You can't do anything with a USB flash drive and an Airport express. The USB port on the Airport is for printers only, Apple does not include a file server for Airport express. You could attach USB flash drives to the iPad via the Camera Connection Kit with older versions of iOS, but that is not possible anymore either. Even then it was only for transferring photos to the iPad, not from it.

[raider]

You can't do anything with a USB flash drive and an Airport express. The USB port on the Airport is for printers only, Apple does not include a file server for Airport express. You could attach USB flash drives to the iPad via the Camera Connection Kit with older versions of iOS, but that is not possible anymore either. Even then it was only for transferring photos to the iPad, not from it.

Thanks again. Does this apply to the airport extreme as well?

[boriscleto]

Thanks again. Does this apply to the airport extreme as well?

A drive plugged into an Airport extreme should show up as a drive on the network. But you still won't be able to connect to it with the iPad. The iPad will only communicate with iTunes or iPhoto/Aperture. The workaround used to be iDisk, but Apple discontinued that service. The only way to share photos between devices now is Photo Stream.

[IchabodCrane]

Thanks again. Does this apply to the airport extreme as well?

AirPort Extreme has a feature called AirPort Disk which allows you to plug in a USB drive into the Extreme and have it's files visible to all computers on the wireless network.

[raider]

Thanks guys. So if I wanted to transfer photos from the ipad to a USB hard drive while I am away on holidays (to backup the photos on the SD card), how else could I do it?

I googled and apparently we can use an Airstash drive or a Seagate Goflex Satellite with hacked firmware to copy photos from the ipad to the drive but I am venturing to ask if there are other (cheaper) ways to do this.

[gutierrez80]

Transfer/Copy/Backup Photos from Your iPad Mini (iOS 7) to Mac Computer

[reeftool]

Although I haven't used it with my iPad, Apple's iCloud service is what they're pushing to accomplish this. They make it sound easy, just load your photos and backup to the cloud and it's available on all your devices. In reality, uploading several hundred RAW photos is next to impossible on the road with the crappy wi-fi in most places and don't even think about using 3G. On my last trip, it was taking several minutes to upload a single JPEG to Facebook so I couldn't imagine trying to upload a full card to a cloud service. When I'm on a trip, I load my shots to my iPad for viewing but I leave my SD cards intact and load my shots to my desktop when I get home. SD cards are getting pretty cheap and I have accumulated quite a few over the years. I have over a dozen with me most of the time.