Copy photos from iPhone without iPhoto

Is there any way just to drag and drop the photos from the iPhone3g into a folder in Finder? or to use iTunes to copy them to a folder of my choosing or use some app other than iPhoto to copy the photos from the iphone?

I don't use iPhoto (i run Picasa under crossover). I've never got on with it and don't really want to start now.

Picasa doesn't detect the presence of the iPhone so I can't import directly to that (which would be the ideal).

So if anyone knows a way of getting photos from the iPhone to my Mac without iPhoto I'd appreciate any ideas.

thanks
mrplow

You can stop iPhoto from opening when the iPhone is connected but if you do this I'm not sure how you'd get the images off the iPhone?

Anyway to stop iPhoto from opening you need to open Image Capture (should be in Applications) - this page gives more detail: clicky.

Oh and you can do this from iPhoto Preferences as well. At the menu bar go to iPhoto > Preferences and under the General tab, select No Application for Connecting Camera Opens.

You can actually use Image Capture to get the pictures off of the phone. They will be downloaded into a folder of your choosing, which seems to be exactly what you're looking for.

RNDdave - thanks for the reply. I have this turned off already for some reason - maybe when I trial Aperture.

Kash - good find! Never even realised that app was part of OS X! Works brilliantly.

Still wondering why this functionality isn't built into iTunes...

thanks
mrplow

Probably because iTunes doesn't handle photos? ;P

iTunes copies photos TO the phone I see no reason why it can't copy FROM the phone. It syncs contacts, calendars and now applications. Much more than it's 'tunes' name would imply

Pshh, that's silly talk ;P

You have to understand it from Apple's point of view. iTunes handles the music, iPhoto handles the pictures, iMovie handles the videos, and so on and so forth. Having one single application do everything would make that application too complicated to comply with the simplicity Apple strives for with its products.

I appreciate what you're saying but they don't use iMovie to sync video with the iPhone. They don't use iCal to sync calendars with the iPhone.

They're not consistent at all in that respect. You maintain calendars in iCal and iTunes draws upon this to sync them with the iPhone. However you have to add movies/videos to iTunes to sync them rather than drawing them from iMovie.

If they were to maintain a separated app model then there should really be an iPhone app that pulls from each of the respective app libraries.

At the moment the simplicity they're trying to achieve (IMHO) is muddled. On one hand there are individual apps to deal with different media/functions. On the other hand there's iTunes that goes most of the way to being a one-stop-shop for all functions. Especially where the iPhone is concerned

While that is true, it makes sense from Apple's perspective to not have iTunes import photos as Apple wants you to maintain your photo collection either through iPhoto or Aperture.

Think of iTunes as ActiveSync on Windows. It synchronizes email, contacts, calendars, etc, but you use a program such as Outlook to make changes, just like you would on OS X with iCal, Address Book and Mail.

I understand what you're saying, but I personally think the system works well. You change things around outside of iTunes, and then iTunes acts as a sort of central hub for your iPhone to grab all of its information from rather than have to query each individual application.

Active-sync is a perfect example. It has one main purpose - to pull and push data from and to a mobile device. All the maintenance of that data is done on the mobile device or stand alone apps on the PC.
iTunes isn't like that, it's a mixture of hub and music/video app.

As a 'hub' I don't see why iTunes should have such a difference in the way it handles data types.

e.g.
- Create an event in iCal - sync to phone with itunes
- Create/modify an event in iPhone calendar - sync back to iCal with iTunes

- A photo stored in iPhoto - sync to phone with iTunes
- Take a photo on iPhone - doesn't sync back to iPhoto via iTunes

That's where the 'hub' idea breaks down. It's two-way with some apps and one-way with others.

I do appreciate what you're saying but I think we're going to have to agree to disagree on this one

Photos have never been handled well in iTunes, IMO. The mechanism for synching is clunky at best, and no settings or options for quality.

At least with movies and music, you can control the quality of what's in iTunes before synching it. iTunes should either offer more control of photos and synching, or do nothing with photos and leave it up to a dedicated app.

So I guess I agree and disagree with both of you.

I just stumbled upon something else. I was messing around with some PDFs in Preview and I hit file in the menu bar and then import image. My iPhone 2G is hooked up because I'm clearing it out and it went there for importing. So I guess you can use preview also? I didn't have any photos on it to do it.

mrplow said:

Active-sync is a perfect example. It has one main purpose - to pull and push data from and to a mobile device. All the maintenance of that data is done on the mobile device or stand alone apps on the PC.
iTunes isn't like that, it's a mixture of hub and music/video app.

Click to expand...

I find it interesting that Apple chose not to utilize iSync for the iPhone. No need to make iTunes more bloated than it already is when you have a perfectly capable program already available. You could then use iPhoto for pictures, iCal and Address Book for personal info, and iTunes for music/movies. Sounds like a very simple idea, much better than using iTunes as the syncing hub.

Really, now with mobileme, only those with without it have to use itunes to sync info.

Even with MobileMe, you still need to sync with iTunes for music and movies.