How to Transfer Photos & Videos from Other iPads & iPhones to Your iPad


Skype screen capture

This past Wednesday I had the pleasure of taking part in a Skype videoconference call with a terrific second grade class in the Arlington School system near Washington, D.C. Their talented teacher, Heather Blake, and my niece Jen Irvin created a wonderful holiday activity for the students called Appy Holidays. Jen’s son Chet is in Ms. Blake’s class and I had a great time visiting with Chet and his classmates.

For Appy Holidays, each student completed an “entry form” to illustrate an idea for a holiday themed app, including drawing an icon, describing the purpose of the app and showing three sample screens. As the Portable Prof and founder of iPad Academy, my role was to use a rubric to review scans of all the Appy Holiday entries and choose the top three. (Entries were identified only by number, so Chet had no advantage). Then the next day, I announced the winning entries during our videoconference. That’s me below in my doctoral robes dressed for my part. The little fellow on the left is a cousin of Frosty the Snowman who joined me for the show.

I must tell you, I’ve evaluated tens of thousands of student papers and projects during my long career as a teacher. With so many creative entries, this was some of the most difficult judging I’ve had to do.

My sister Anne and my wife Emily took photos and video of me during the Skype activity. (We were visiting family and friends in Pennsylvania for the holidays. Special thanks to Anne for encouraging me to set up her living room for the videoconference.) Once the Skype call ended, I needed to gather the photos and videos they had recorded on an iPad and iPhone. I wanted to transfer these pictures and movies to my iPad. As I pondered how to do this, I remembered I had Apple’s Camera Connection Kit. I’ve written about the Camera Connection Kit before. See that post to learn more about this kit.

All I needed was my sync cable and USB adapter from the Camera Connection Kit.

I plugged the USB adapter into my iPad and connected the USB end of the sync cable. Next I connected the 30 pin dock connector end of the sync cable to the iPhone or iPad that had the photos or videos I wanted.

connected iOS devices

Content from the connected device showed up quickly on my iPad and then I could choose just the pictures or movies I wanted to copy to my iPad (checked items).

photo selection

The holiday season is always an enjoyable time with family and friends. My time with the children from Jamestown Elementary made this holiday even more special.

Appy Holidays everyone!


About Andy Brovey

Dr. Andy Brovey, The Portable Prof, teaches about digital tools through his work, websites and social media. In 2007, Apple Inc. recognized his work and named him an Apple Distinguished Educator. He started this iPad Academy website shortly after the first iPad went on sale. On his Freelance Teaching site you'll find the resources you need to teach like a smart entrepreneur.

6 thoughts on “How to Transfer Photos & Videos from Other iPads & iPhones to Your iPad

  • Andy Brovey Post author

    Cannot do music and apps this way between devices. Not aware of classes in Clearwater, but I’ll be opening registration for my own online Master Class next week. I’ll be posting more info soon here on my blog.

  • Angela Meeker

    You say u can transfer video’s +photo’s from iPad to iPad, can one transfer music or apps in the same way?
    Do u know of any tutorial classes in Clearwater FL.
    Thank you, Angela

  • Carol

    The Photosync app is a great idea if you have solid wi-fi and your ultimate destination is a computer. I work in a school system where wifi is not always available everywhere. Some of our iPads are the first gen so we need to transfer them from device to device. Thank you Andy for the post I did not think about transferring pictures and hopefully movies from device to device. This will help!
    I will be posting this to my blog. Thank you!

    • Andy Brovey Post author

      Carol – Thanks for the kind words about this post and for clarifying how and when the Connection Kit and apps such as PhotoSync should be used. Dropped by your blog. A fun and informative read, with many suggestions for those in the field of Occupational Therapy.

    • Andy Brovey Post author

      Raffaello offers a good suggestion for using an app to move photos and PhotoSync is a great app to accomplish this task. Here’s more on PhotoSync from Sam Gliksman at the iPads in Education Ning.

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