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iPad Pro Be honest when was the last time you connected to a PC or Mac ?

T

TheRealAlex

macrumors 68040
Original poster
Sep 2, 2015
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I fondly remember connecting my iPhone 5 to my PC and doing back ups. But since the iPad Pro and iCloud backing up to a PC has never been necessar.

I actually did last week just to get my Hundreds on pictures and screenshots from my iPad Pro to my PC as a back up.

Are any of you connecting your iPad Pro to a PC or Mac why or why not ?
 
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To be honest, mostly now when I get a new phone I’ll back up the phone to the Mac just for another backup, then I’ll do phone to phone transfer.
 
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Last week, because I was transferring a few gigs of video onto my iPad and wireless syncing with iTunes has always been spotty at best for me. Basically anytime I'm moving media to or from my iOS device a wired connection + iTunes is still the fastest and most reliable method.
 
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Whenever I get a new device, I always create an encrypted iTunes backup of the old one just to be safe.

Two days ago, did an iTunes backup and restore to iPad 7th gen. Was on LTE at the time so yeah, iCloud restore was a no go.

Before that, maybe a couple weeks ago transferring 25GB (1080p Blu-ray) and 50GB (4K UHD Blu-ray) MKV files to a Pro 12.9 and 10.5 since I wanted to test how well Infuse handled those. The difference in detail was quite noticeable at 12.9 (likely because I'm using the iPad just 1.5-2ft away). At 10.5, didn't really notice the resolution bump but there's better separation of colors.
 
Years. Ever since Apple made it easy to set up on the device itself. No need for a computer to connect.
 
Everyone’s different but for me the memories of having to connect an iOS device to a computer are not fond. LOL. My honest reasoning for that is the USB interfaces on these devices are too damned slow. So I am extremely thankful that I don’t have to do it very often with my iPad. I went cloud a long time ago and now use multiple cloud services for various things.
 
I’ve forgotten when I connected my iOS devices to my Mac last. iCloud backup works just fine for me.
 
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No need to do it on a routine basis - backup to iCloud, everything syncs via iCloud.

However, my Mac's Photos library is not signed into iCloud Photos (way too large to put into the cloud). If there are photos on iPad or iPhone I want on my Mac, I'll either create/add to an iCloud Shared Album, or AirDrop.

Otherwise, connecting to Mac is for problem resolution (restore iOS) and as an alternate path for data migration to new devices. And the need to do it for device migration is greatly reduced now that device-to-device migration is available.

Overall, having a "full backup" can be far less important now than in the past, presuming one is using iCloud Photos and iCloud Messages. With those large data sets moved to and constantly synced with the cloud, it's no longer necessary to back them up nightly - iCloud and iTunes backup sizes drop into the hundreds of megabytes, reduced from tens or hundreds of gigabytes. Camera Roll and Messages archives tend to be the two largest components of traditional backups, and must be copied in their entirety with each backup. Once iCloud Photos and iCloud Messages are enabled, new photos and messages are moved to the cloud when created while pre-existing data simply remains in the cloud.
 
TheRealAlex said:
I fondly remember connecting my iPhone 5 to my PC and doing back ups. But since the iPad Pro and iCloud backing up to a PC has never been necessar.

I actually did last week just to get my Hundreds on pictures and screenshots from my iPad Pro to my PC as a back up.

Are any of you connecting your iPad Pro to a PC or Mac why or why not ?
Click to expand...

Everyday. I don't have an iPad Pro, but an iPhone 8 Plus and iPhone 5 and i connect them to my PC to sync my local music library and to do the usual backup. All with iTunes.

iPhone 5 i keep around for nostalgia (it's jailbroken and downgraded to iOS 6.1.4), so i don't connect that phone every day, but definitely the 8 Plus which is my main device right now.

An iPad i would definitely use and sync the same way, especially because i have always preferred the Wi-Fi-only version. Cheaper and i can use my iPhone hotspot if i want to use my iPad while on-the-go.

Not a fan of the Cloud, but i do use Cloud Services for Documents etc... but why stream music and movies and upload / download stuff (iCloud backup) constantly when i can have everything local? That way i also don't have to rely on a good cellular connection, which isn't always present where i live. Exception is stuff like YouTube etc... which is fine to stream.

Maybe i'm old school, but i do like iTunes (it's just slow and bloated) and the Lightning Port, see no reason for Apple to switch to USB-C on the iPhone, but i would like a faster data transfer rate that USB-C would offer.

I guess USB-C makes more sense for those who already use USB-C on their Mac and iPad Pro. I have a PC with USB-A and every other accessory i own is Lightning (like my Dock) and my Wireless Charger uses Micro-USB. Was a 15$ one, but it works. I don't have a single USB-C cable, but plenty of USB-A and Lightning Cables. I really don't wanna switch and buy everything new. Docks, Accessories, Dongles etc...
 
TheRealAlex said:
Are any of you connecting your iPad Pro to a PC or Mac why or why not ?
Click to expand...

I connect my iPad Pro to my Mac about once every two weeks. Partly, that's because I have to shuffle large FileMaker Pro documents I've been working on the desktop to the iPad regularly, and they are files that are too big to easily email (databases with 70,000+ complex entries, some containing images). Partly, that's because I have to shuffle marked student PDFs back onto the Mac to make a copy there before I email the papers back to students.

I often charge my iPad Pro directly from the computer, as my wife and I compete for limited wall-plugs when it comes to charger time.

I also use that opportunity to do backups of the iPad on the computer.

I'm not a big fan of storing backups exclusively to the cloud (or to the cloud at all.....). That runs the risk of various FERPA violations for storing graded student work, and thus is discouraged at our school.
 
TheRealAlex said:
I fondly remember connecting my iPhone 5 to my PC and doing back ups. But since the iPad Pro and iCloud backing up to a PC has never been necessar.

I actually did last week just to get my Hundreds on pictures and screenshots from my iPad Pro to my PC as a back up.

Are any of you connecting your iPad Pro to a PC or Mac why or why not ?
Click to expand...

Yesterday, to sync my playlist and newly purchased music from Amazon.
 
Somewhat regularly. Among other reasons, because iCloud doesn’t do incremental backups, and I don’t want to have to pay monthly for backups.
 
Everyday.

It auto starts iTunes and does a backup, saved my butt a few times especially when I had the battery drain issue on 13.2.2.

It also charges my iPad Pro while I'm plugged in and using it as a 2nd monitor to watch Netflix.
 
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