I have not felt as frustrated as this for a VERY long time.....

I've just spent 7 whole hours with my new iPad 3, having bitten the bullet and convincing myself that an iPad will be great for showing portfolio images to potential clients, for viewing camera images straight from my tethered Nikon, for watching training videos on a nice big screen and no longer on my smartphone......

I have failed at all of these, one by one.

The last time I felt this frustrated with a computing device was about 10 years ago with Windows NT......

1) No manual in the box - implying this device is soooooo damn easy to work, just switch it on and have fun..... (yeah right)

2) How do you get stuff onto this device, I've hooked it up to my PC (Windows 7 workstation I built myself so I'm not entirely computer illiterate) and the iPad isn't listed in Explorer.... worked out that's what I need iTunes for....

3) How unbelievably insane is iTunes ?? Where do I start ??

If it wasn't for a very clever chappy I live with (far smarter than me) telling me it took him a week to get to grips with his iPad and he never uses iTunes (sheesh, what does that tell you !).

Back to iTunes - above mentioned chappy told me that I needed to Add Folders to my Music / Video library lists that I want to put onto my iPad. So far only music has gone okay (apart from having to do it twice, the 2nd time all my music was taken off the iPad for some strange reason).

Also, how are you supposed to remember which folders you added to your libraries ?????????????????????????

4) I've just spent about 2 hours converting my flv files into .mov files only to now be told that for some reason iPad doesn't like the mov files I've created (they play fine on my pc).

5) My emails don't work (needed to restart the iPad which fixed the 'greying' out of my emails making them unreadable).

6) My photos aren't in the ORDER I either took them in OR the naming order I gave them !! (no, I don't want to edit the exif data to make all the shot taken date be the same).

7) Photos don't stay in any FOLDER, it seems they are simply thrown into an enormous bucket (i.e. they aren't in nested folders which is what I'd want and need)

8) App I purchased for the iPad also has a plug-in for Lightroom - plug-in doesn't work (okay, that might not be the iPad's fault but the PC doesn't recognize the iPad when connected.......).

All in all, a very very very frustrating day and one which has me thinking to return this back to Apple - I don't think I can be doing with all this iTunes headache.....

(p.s. I really had high hopes for this device, thinking that I'd be able to wow clients with my photographs etc off this device, but how crazy it is that you cannot even order your photographs the way you want them to be is beyond me)

Install iTunes. Let it scan your PC for pictures, music, and video. It will then add and organize these items in the proprietary iTunes library.

Once complete connect your iPad via USB port and sync it. All items in the iTunes library will be copied to your iPad.

IPad is a visible device to iTunes only with the exception of a few utilities that are not for everyday use.

You can also transfer from camera to iPad with the apple camera kit which is a proprietary adapter that accepts memory cards.

I think you can add images using explorer. My iPad shows up in explorer as a "digital camera" and I think you could drag and drop images into it but I've not tried it though.

The iPad is a great device but iTunes is a piece of crap. Managing it yourself is hardwork. Not everyone wants to add everything g on their computer to their iPad.

Sent from my iPad 3

Hi,
I use mine as a portfolio plus for importing photos as a first pass to chuck away the obvious duds (you can view RAWs without the iPad messing with them using the camera connection kit).

First off, transferring your portfolio. Got to be using iTunes. The iPad will mount as a camera but as you want a portfolio folder and not a big mess, use iTunes.
I have a portfolio folder, copy in the photos you want to copy, then set this as the photo folder to sync in iTunes. Stops it messing with the inevitable well set up folder structure you have for your photography workflow,

Next,to get your photos off the iPad into say Lightroom, this sounds odd but take a photo with the iPad. This seems necessary to set up the DCIM folder, then windows 7 will see all the photo folders and Lightroom can import it.

What application have you purchased? Is it photosmith? Hopefully the taking a photo technique will help. My photo laptop doesn't have iTunes on it and can see and sync using photosmith or using the iPad cable.

Hi.
Yes it can be frustrating in the beginning for a new person in the iPhone world. But one thing, when you have found out about iTunes and iCloud, (not that difficult to find informations about iTunes and iCloud on the internet), (and don´t you have any friends with an iphone)? (and do not give up, in a very little while you will love your iPad) then download this app from App Store:"PhotoSync" it is. This app is able to effortless transfer photos and videos between you computer and you iPad over wifi. Without wifi, you need camera kit for ipad, then you can transfer images from your Nikon to ipad.

Best regards from Elisheba, who simply loves her iPad.

P.S,

I Agree, Itunes is kind of irritating, you might choose to rely mostly on iCloud.

Yes but Midranger4 i don't want to scan 4.5 terabytes of hard disks - I have a huge amount of photos, music and video......

I know what I want to put onto the iPad, it's just that it doesn't seem very intuitive how to do it. And then, it doesn't allow you ANY way of viewing that stuff on your iPad in a logical order you choose to employ (okay, music is fine I can handle the way it wants to list albums/artists etc, but my Photos ?? My training videos ?? Just splatter those willy-nilly ??).....

Sorry, I'm tired, this has exhausted me ! But thanks for your help.

PhotoSync!

And I am not affiliated with the developers of the app. It is simple a very useful, simple and powerful app for your needs.

Hi dhevans_6,

Sorry for my ranting opening message - I just have never been this frustrated. I have an Android phone, that's an amazing piece of kit, my ex-wife has an iPhone (which I don't like because I feel that straight away Apple puts you into a straight jacket, you can't seem to move icons without the Apple police having a say about it).....

Yes, it is Photosmith - and I'm holding back on purchasing any more apps until I get that one working - and I daren't tether my camera via the connector kit until I've sorted out all the issues I've been experiencing !!!! I purchased this iPad for 2 reasons 1) To show clients my photography in meetings and 2) to tether it to my camera and instantly see my photos as I take them (I'm a Property Photographer).

Regarding your portfolio folder - I take it it is subdivided within that main folder for different photography subjects. Mine are subdivided in all sorts of ways - maybe when I get the photosmith app working then it'll make creating albums easier on the iPad......

OMG !!!!

Yes, you're right, I took a picture with the iPad and now I can see the iPad on my computer...... (can't copy / paste anything into it though).......

Shame.....

Thanks for the help though dhevans_6 - I'm beginning to feel a little better already !

(plus I've sorted out the problem with my emails failing).

Thanks Elisheba,

Reading your message has made me smile some - it's just that I feel like a total ignoramous !!! I've never had computer problems like this before, maybe Apple's hype had me convinced it'd be soooooooo easy and I'd breeze through it all with time to spare !!!!

It has been nothing like that at all, in fact the complete opposite. And, I can see that it'll be a case of buying this app and that app to do simple stuff. Yes, I do buy apps with Android, but there are a LOT of free things as well.

Are you suggesting that maybe with Photosync that'd get me one more step away from iTunes (which by the way, doesn't make sense being called iTunes because the name implies to me that it's for music, which does seem to make sense as that's what it seems to handle best IMHO).

And is the implication that there'd be other sync apps that I could buy, one by one, to get me almost totally off iTunes completely ??

(oh well, just went off and bought PhotoSync !!!) - this has been one expensive, unproductive day !!!!

The manual is in the device itself, one must do a LITTLE reading to learn.

I'm on my 8th day with my new ipad, and I share your pain. About the first thing I attempted to do was transfer my mp3s from my Windows 7 PC using iTunes. When I hit sync it hoovered every copy of every song (with a 1.5 TB driver I have a lot of dupes) so it instantly had sucked up about 50 GB of my 64.

No problem, right? With windows explorer you just go in and delete all the dupes. Takes a couple of minutes. But noooooooo -- just google some combination of delete iPad music file. There are thousands of hits, and they are mostly incredibly unhelpful, because they tell you it can't be done, except by deleting each song individually. Which in my case would have taken most of the rest of my life. Finally I figured out you have to delete the entire iTunes library, and then sync the empty library to the iPad, which empties the iPad's library. And then start over, very carefully.

Then the same thing with my photo libraries. I spent a lot more than seven hours, having fun whatsoever.

There are a lot of things I like about the iPad; it's a nice portable web browser, and I like the "read" function. And cute games, etc. But the notion that it is so intuitive that it doesn't need a user manual is laughable -- as is the fact that you have to track it down as I did, or have it pointed out like another respondent did on this thread. Not to mention tht when you finally do open the user manual, it's 342 pages long. No index, of course, because that would be too conventional, I guess.

I've got until next week to decide whether to keep it. I'm thinking I will, because I like the portability and I have my PC for serious work. And I do feel like I'm getting used to the iPads idiosyncrasies.

But I was comforted to see that I'm not the only person whose iPad initiation can only be described as frustrating.

You must learn the Apple way, NOT your way. Forget what you think you know about computers and learn how to operate the Apple way. It's like learning to speak a different language. Baby steps.

That has been my biggest challenge - to unlearn my PC ways and embrace the "dark side."

Tom

If you need to do the same thing to alot of pictures on your PC, Irfanview is a great free program that allows for batch photo processing in all sorts of creative ways. I used it to batch remove all EXIF data to get it to sort how I wanted.

You can do a selective sync of photos,or any object type for that matter. If you do a selective sync you flag what folders and/or specific files are exported to the iPad.

Once resident on the iPad iPhoto can and does sort and categorize photos by date, event, or even photo image as it readily identifies photos of the same object or subject.

There are you tube videos that can help you with every question and we will help as much as we can.

Be patient, once you get past the Learning curve you will be very very satisfied. Hang in there. Feel free to PM me and I will find an appropriate way whether iPad or windows based to communicate and demonstrate the concepts. If you are open to it I would be willing to do the front end pieces via remote support and you can watch as I perform all functions but I'm sure if you take your time and watch a few videos it will click in your own mind and then you will be off and running.

For the OP:

I love my ipad 3/new ipad. Fantastic amount of fun.

That being said, all apple products are completely handicapped in some ways. What you can do, you can do really well. What you can't do, you can't do. It is a completely claustrophobic environment. It is built to do what apple has decided you need to do, nothing more.

Your frustration will not decrease until you accept the apple model.

Have fun!

First, the manual is available in several places. Most notably for new users is that it is a default bookmark in Safari. Just tap on the open book icon, scroll to the bottom of the list and tap iPad User Guide. You can also download the manual for free in the iBooks app (also free to download), or go to the link KevinJS provided for the PDF version.

There was a small card that came in your iPad's box. One side told you how to get the manual. Yes, everyone overlooks this. I certainly did.

As for the rest. The iPad comes with some decent (for the most part) but sometimes limited apps (especially true of the Photos app). To do many of the things you want, and do them well, you'll be researching and getting apps from the App Store. In this way it is no different than any other computer.

Hang in there. It all comes together.