As you know, Apple has made iTunes the preferred management tool for iPads and iPhones, handling everything from activation and initial setup to daily synchronization and updates. iTunes is also the preferred tool for adding most types of documents to the iPad and iPhone directly or deleting them from it.

The main exception to this is incoming photos and video, which iTunes doesn’t handle. On the Mac, that’s iPhoto’s job–so if you’re on a Mac, iPhoto is the application you’ll normally use to copy or remove photos, videos, or screen captures from the iPad or iPhone. (You can also use Image Capture or Preview’s File | Import From Device command if you want only to copy the items rather than adding them to your iPhoto library.) On Windows, the iPad’s or iPhone’s photo and video storage area shows up in the Windows Explorer as a digital camera. You can then copy the photos to the PC’s file system and enjoy them in whichever program you prefer.

Apart from this digital camera that Windows sees, the iPad and iPhone don’t appear in Windows Explorer. On the mac, Finder acts as if completely unaware of the iPad’s or iPhone’s presence. This is to encourage you to use iTunes (and iPhoto on the Mac) to manage the device and avoid you stamping around sensitive parts of its file system with hobnailed boots on.

Within its file system, iOS gives each apps a separate storage area for documents–its own document silo. iOS largely confines each app to its own silo and prevents it from accessing any other silos. But apps that can receive incoming files, such as Mail and Safari, can provide those files to other apps. For example, if you receive a Word document attached to an e-mail message on your iPad, you can choose to open that document in Pages for iPad (if you have it installed) or another app that can handle Word documents. Mail makes the document available to Pages or the app you choose.

iOS doesn’t give you a file browser that you can use to browse files and open them in their apps, let alone choose which app to open a particular file in. Instead, you open the app that can handle the document, then open the document from the app’s document silo. Or you use Mail or Safari to pick the app you want to open a document stored in one of those apps.

Similarly, when you need to get documents off the iPad or iPhone, you need to use iTunes and the limited sharing capabilities built into specific apps. For instance, to get a Numbers workbook off an iPad, you first export it from Number to the File Sharing area, where iTunes can access it. You can then copy the file to your computer using iTunes, send it via e-mail, or upload it to Apple’s iWork.com sharing site.

Understanding the iOS File Viewers

iOS has built-in viewers for major file types, including these:

– PDF

– Word (both the .docx and .doc formats)

– Excel (bothe the .xlsx and .xls formats)

– PowerPoint (both the .pptx and .ppt formats)

– Rich-text format (RTF)

– Text documents

– HTML

Various file sharing apps for iphone that enable you to transfer files to or from the iPad or iPhone can display the documents using these viewers but cannot open the documents for editing. The viewers display the documents for viewing but don’t provide full features. For example, if you open a PDF file for a second time, the viewer doesn’t remember the last page you read the first time you opened it; and you can’t follow internal links within a PDF file. But as far as straightforward reading goes, the viewers are pretty good.

Costea

The author likes to write about all things related to apple products

Check Out These Too:

10 Best Chat Apps For Entertainment 10 Best Chat Apps For Entertainment. As the technology develops, and smart phones play a more and more important role in our daily lives we have to keep up with…
How to Get Back Deleted Pictures from iPhone How to recover deleted photos from iphone - AppleRepo.com, We all love the pictures we can take with our iPhone, and put onto our iPhone from our computer, don't we?…
Google Plus iPad App - How to Install Google Plus… Google Plus App for ipad, iphone and ipod touch What's the new iphone application that might give Facebook, Twitter, and Bebo a run for its money? Google Plus app (G+…
5 Great Task and Time Management Apps for the iPhone… The iPhone 4 and the iPad are the current leaders on the mobile devices market, with the first one being the best smartphone money can buy and the second being…
How To Get Photos off iPod Touch How To Get Photos off iPod Touch The iPod Touch is a terrific music device with a well-functioning camera. But, if for some reason you’ve found yourself wanting to remove…
Apple Really Wants Business Sales The new iPad is now available and more iOS devices are sure to come in the next few months. As always Apple is working hard to expand their market share…
Instagram iPhone app - Popular app for iPhone, iPad… Instagram iPhone app - Popular app for iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch. There have been very few breakaway hit iPhone apps on the IPhone like Instagram. Wherever you go on…
Sky News App Comes to the Apple iPad Today, the popular news provider; Sky News, has officially launched their applcation for the Apple iPad. The application gives iPad users a fresh way of viewing news and the focus…
CNN iPhone Application The recently released CNN iPhone application has embarrassed all the other news applications designed for the iPhone. Although CNN have released their application for the iPhone late, they have truly…
How to Transfer Documents from the iWork Apps on the… Usually, the easiest way to get the documents from the iWork apps on the iPad onto a PC or Mac is by using the File Sharing feature in iTunes. To…
6 Essentials For The IPad Mini 6 Essentials For The IPad Mini. If you’ve just unboxed your very own iPad mini, or are getting a bit jaded by your latest piece of tech, this essential guide…
How to Transfer Documents in iPhone via E-Mail When you need to get documents onto the iPad or iPhone quickly, you can simply e-mail them to an account n t iPad or iPhone. You can then open the…
Apple release iOS 4.2 Update for iPhone and iPad Apple is always striving to improve the usability of their products and often, they release new version of the firmware that runs on the devices in order to improve the…
iPad is Disabled Connect to iTunes: A Comprehensive Guide Welcome to our comprehensive guide on resolving the "iPad is disabled connect to iTunes" issue. This message can be quite alarming, especially if you rely on your iPad for daily…
LifeTopix - iPod Touch Accessible Storage Application LifeTopix - iPod Touch Accessible Storage Application You carry your mobile phone or iPhone because you basically want to access and store information wherever, whenever. Your contacts, to-dos, and calendar…
Create Your Own Iphone And IPad App Create Your Own Iphone And IPad App. If you have had a great idea for the iPhone you do not have to be a programmer to make it happen. There…
Facebook's iPad App Arrives Facebook's iPad App Arrives Be it updating some status for likes and comments, engaging into fun-filled games on the go, talking to friends via chat, or reading their Wall posts,…
How to Do Split Screen on iPad How to Do Split Screen on iPad - The iPad is a versatile device that lets you do a lot of different things. One of the features that people love…
Tips to Print and Make PDF Document From Your iPad You could print and make PDF documents for your iPad using these great 2 Pdf printer app from itunes apps store: PDF Printer App Print to PDF app was a…
How to Combine Videos on iPhone? Use These 3 Free Apps How to Combine Videos on iPhone - AppleRepo.com, If you want to combine two videos on your iPhone, there's no easy way to do it through the iPhone gallery. But…
Ibeesoft Iphone Data Recovery Review Ibeesoft Iphone Data Recovery Review by AppleRepo.com, Data loss is a common problem for all users of iPhones, whether it's a result of a mistake on the part of the…
iPhone Photo Applications – Roundup Many Photo applications have been developed for the iPhone. Often users get confused that out of so many applications which to use so that they can extract the most out…
How to Buy More Storage on Iphone How to Buy More Storage on Iphone - Your iPhone, iPad, or iPod Touch comes with a set amount of storage space, which is used to store your content. Depending…
Archive Your Assets With F.A.M.P iPhone app Archive Your Assets With F.A.M.P iPhone app In the hustle and bustle of daily life, I've hardly had any time for myself. While I've been able to take care of…
How to Delete Apps on iPad: Permanently and Temporarily How to Delete Apps on iPad: Permanently and Temporarily Most of the time we download and save files – be it music, games, or videos, that we sometimes end up…
How to Connect iPhone to iPad How to Connect iPhone to iPad - What is going on everybody, in this article I would like to show you how you can connect or how you can link…
How To Add Wallpapers To iPhone and iPod Wallpaper is a picture or design displayed at the screen. Now, imagine your iPod or iPhone not having this. No matter how sophisticated or elegant the way it may look,…
How to Delete Photos from Your iPod Touch We've covered the topics of adding pictures to your iPod Touch, and recovering deleted photos from your iPod Touch, but how can you simply delete photos from your iPod Touch?…
How to Save As Pdf on iPhone How to Save As Pdf on iPhone - This article will show you how to save as a PDF on iPhone or iPad. Iphone or iPad is one of the…
A Review of KyTekHTMLEditor App for iPhone and iPad Formerly called Papyrus, the KyTekHTMLEditor for iPad and iPhone allows you to download HTML documents for text editing from Google docs alone. Its price of 9.99 dollars is reasonable, as…