blackest Loc: Ireland

For USB devices there is a host end and a device end and the device expects to be powered from the host. The Host is usually a Computer. The iPad is a bit unusual. It's a device when you hook it up to a computer. But when you want to hook a device to your iPad device its now supposed to be a Host! The iPad can be a host but its limited to supplying just 20mA of Power to the attached device. The attached device tends to want from 100mA to a 1000mA in extreme cases.

So what to do with these power hungry devices. The answer is to attach a powered usb hub and plug the device into the hub. This provides the needed power and now the iPad only has to deal with the data. In some cases its possible to get away without the power to the hub (really the iPad can supply 100mA if it has a full charged battery). If the battery isn't mostly charged it may still refuse to work.

Weird thing about iPads and iPhones is the file system is hidden from users and applications. Part of this is to do with security, An application has access just to it's folders it can't access a random directory. instead Apps have interfaces to copy data between apps. An interface is just a protocol

It loves network servers it can upload and download. Maybe we can use this webpage as an example the uhh site holds this web page. The UHH site maybe runs on a linux server or a Windows server using ext4 file system for linux maybe ntfs for windows it doesnt matter when your computer asks for the page the server reads the file(s) on the server and transfers to your machine which records a copy on your hard drive. Your hard drive can be using any kind of disk format the server doesn't care. The underlying file systems are not needed to be known.

There have been plenty of suggestions for client server methods. such as drop box or email ... If you don't need to know the servers operating system then it probably is suited for file transfer to and from an ipad.

MissSue

lots of good options. For Canon, if your camera has wifi you can set up the app CanonConnect and wifi them to the ipad, or use the apple cord... it works great only if you have as SD card. Email also works and so does iMessage if you have an iPhone.

Ricopix

Size em and make jpegs and email em. Check the size of the attachment (there's going to be a limit) your email allows! This bypasses compatability and hardware issues and the extra expense involved in sending the proper gizmo for their particular phone or tablet. If you need to send more than one attachment then do so. If you keep the photos in size and subject related files you can send and receive from whatever machine you have to whatever they've got and they can send to friends, relatives etc. with no hassles. It's the old KISS formula for efficient communication which doesn't show up much on UHH.