How can I download photos from a LG VX8300 phone to my Mac?

Question

How can I download photos from a LG VX8300 phone to my Mac?

I'm kind of baffled to say the least: I bought memory for my LG VX8300 phone in order to use the camera function, and successfully loaded some wallpaper images from my eMac onto the memory card, and then onto the camera. So far, so good. But when I took a few photos with the phone, the only images that showed up via a USB media reader where the original images that I had loaded onto the card - the images captured with the phone didn't appear.

Next, I hooked up the phone directly to the computer with a USB cable, but it didn't show up as a device, either on the desktop, or through Image Capture!

I'm coming to the grim realization that Verizon is using a proprietary file format to prevent people from downloading images from their phone to a computer... ugh! I'd love an hints on how to download these photos - I really don't want to e-mail them to myself from the phone, though that seems to be what Verizon is hoping for, since they charge for it.

My computer is not Bluetooth capable.

G4 Powerbook | G4 iBook | G4 eMac, Mac OS X (10.4.6)

Posted on Jul 21, 2007 11:54 PM

Reply

Answer 1

Jul 22, 2007 12:38 AM in response to Portland Phan

A couple of points, and a wild guess. . .

Are you saving the images taken on the phone into the correct folder. I have to save mine from the camera folder into a separate Pictures folder.

You say the device does not mount. Have you tried the Terminal? If you type

ls -la /Volumes

you would be able to see if it is mounted as an invisible volume (one with .) in the name. If that is how they are doing it, it would be possible (but annoying) to get those images off.

As for Bluetooth, I read that this is also disabled for File transfers. http://reviews.cnet.com/cell-phones/lg-vx8300-verizon-wireless/4505-6454_7-31812 933.html

Complain long and loud to Verizon and LG.

Reply

Answer 2

Jul 22, 2007 7:33 AM in response to Portland Phan

HI Portland,

I have a PBookG4 and an LGVX8100. There's a way around this...

Your PBook doesn't have Bluetooth? No problem. All you need is a D-Link USB Bluetooth Adapter available here:
http://www.amazon.com/D-Link-DBT-120-Wireless-Bluetooth-Adapter/dp/B00006B7DB

Very affordable and well worth the investment.

You can then take photos with your LG, then immediately send then via Bluetooth to your PBook. But you will need to "pair" the phone to the PBook using the Bluetooth Setup Assistant located in System Preferences. Once you have the adapter connected, when you launch System Preferences, the Bluetooth icon will be in the Hardware section. Just click there and follow the instructions for setting up a new Bluetooth device. Piece of cake!!

Where there is a will, there is a way 🙂

Carolyn

Reply

Answer 3

Jul 22, 2007 10:05 AM in response to Portland Phan

Version is very cruel to customers with protecting there property on there phones. I have a SCH-U540 Samsung phone and getting photos or adding music is frustrating. Even though the Version booth at my mall said I could only buy there "Music Essentials Kit" to manage their music from a windows computer I was able to use an alternative software to get my photos with the cord that came with the kit.
It's called Bitpim.
Your very luckily unlike my mine you have a supported driver for your phone. You have features the "Phonebook (but not ringer/wallpaper assignments), wallpaper (including camera), ringers, filesystem, call history, SMS & Memo."

http://www.bitpim.org/#download

This should solve your download problem and more.

Ti Powerbook G4 1.0 Ghz Mac OS X (10.4.10) 512 mb RAM

Reply

Answer 4

Jul 22, 2007 11:33 AM in response to sam Chambers

Thanks for the excellent advice, all! I started with BitPim, and have hit a bit of a deadend with the application not being able to detect the phone - I can manually set the port location to the phone (and it shows up as an LG device), but then get a "false" and no connection. So I suspect that's something on the phone end blocking access from a computer via USB... I'll dig around on that a bit.

Thanks, also, for the suggestion to buy a BlueTooth adapter - that's my next step in this... although after reading the link/review about Verizon's attitude toward open file transfer, I may be severing my ties with them. I've been happy with the phone service, but this is really annoying.

This is what happens when you assume that Mac people exist in the rest of the corporate sphere..! To think that I would assume that a phone/camera with a USB cable would actually be capable of connecting to a computer and transferring files! 😉

Thanks, again!

Tom

Reply

Answer 5

Jul 22, 2007 12:39 PM in response to Portland Phan

Warning about the bluetooth adapter
from
http://www.bitpim.org/help/

"If you are connected via Bluetooth bitpim will only detect the phone on Windows XP SP2 if you are using the native windows drivers."

Reply