Why can't I drag and drop photos from iPhoto on my iMac to my iPad?

Most of the people on these forums, including myself, are fellow users - you're not talking to iTunes Support here.

An iPad is not designed to mount as a drive, you can sync photos to your iPad via your Mac's iTunes.

If you have iTunes 11 on your Mac then you may want to re-enable the left-hand sidebar via View > Show Sidebar (option-command-S).

To sync photos, connect and select your iPad on the left-hand sidebar of your Mac's iTunes, and on the right-hand side there should be a series of tabs, one of which should be Photos - if you select that tab you can then select which photo folders, or albums from iPhoto, to sync to the iPad. There is a bit more info on this page. You will need to sync all the photos that you want on the iPad together in one go as only the most recent photo sync remains on the iPad - synced photos can't be deleted directly on the iPad, instead they are deleted by not including them in the next photo sync.

You're not alone spacecadets. I can't understand why you can't just drag and drop photos from iPhoto to a plugged in iPod/iPhone/iPad either. The first time you plug your device in you're asked if you want to trust this computer. If you say yes, you should be able to drag and drop photos. How is this less secure than setting up a convoluted sync via iTunes?

These days, I think you're supposed to be able to do this using AirDrop, but I can't get AirDrop to work on my three-year-old MacBook Pro. You're absolutely right, this is harder than it ought to be.

Ah, so this is why their devices won't show up in AirDrop on my Mac, from this article: 'If a Mac you're using with AirDrop was manufactured before 2012, you can send and receive files with other Mac computers.' What they meant to say is, if your Mac was made in 2011 (as mine was) you can't send and receive files with iPods, iPhones or iPads.

My kids just want some photos and videos from events and family trips on their iPods, and it’s over a GB of data—too big to be emailing. And we really shouldn’t have to send this stuff up to the cloud and back down when the devices are right here in the same room. But since my Mac won’t communicate with them in any sensible way, the only solution I could think of was to transfer the photos onto a USB stick, have them transfer those photos to iPhoto on their own Mac when they go back to their mum’s place, and then sync them to their iPods using iTunes. I'll be sure to get a call from them when they can't figure all this out. I feel like I’m back in 2002.

This is where shared photo stream, Google drive and DropBox come in handy.

iPhoto '11: Create a shared photo stream

My Photo Stream and iCloud Photo Sharing limits - Apple Support

Sure you can use those services, but as I said before, we shouldn’t need to. Call me old-school, but I remain conscious of the difference between the LAN and WAN. Why put my private photos and videos on a public network when I want them to remain private? Why add to the demands on my Internet connection when both devices are right here in front of me? (Confession: I’m one of those people who will download a major OS X upgrade once, then copy the installer over the local network to all my Macs, rather than download it over and over again as Apple would have us do by default.)

I've been using macs for 20 years and the syncing on the mac is one of the least user friendly, least direct and most convoluted thing I've ever dealt with on a mac. I just spent 15 minutes or more jsyt trying to figure out how to get a photo onto my iPad without wiping out all my existing photos; it's ridiculous. I suspect that this has everything to do with Apple trying to keep firm control over what goes onto their devices more than creating a correct, user friendly experience that is consisted with other apple interfaces. And, i think it used to be possible to drag and drop photos onto my old touch.

For everyone saying, this is a forum and not apple, well, apple doesn't provide a real way to give them feedback so whatever.

Feedback : http://www.apple.com/feedback/

Thanks