USB file transfer support for Mac OS X

Would be nice get it working with iPhoto and iMovie without need to use Image Capture app on OS X. Getting access to other files would be nice too and preferably so that mounting a file system would be the solution. That would solve the iPhoto issue too.

Thanks for all fine answers! Actually a ready-made solution is needed for accessing Jolla's files from Mac and other computers without developer mode. [Says somebody who has developed enough and only wants to use his device]

I have to say I'm rather shocked this does not work. I knew I was going to lack the bliss of iCloud syncing everything, but not even showing up as a USB drive (like the N9)? Basically it seems there is no user-friendly way of hooking up the Jolla with a Mac. Really unfortunate considering how popular Macs are these days.

Would be nice if USB Mass storage would be supported in addition to MTP.

Apparently the Jolla USB vendor/product IDs changed in the 1.0.4.20 update. When selecting "PC Connection" mode, the device comes up as 2931:0a05 now, but it used to be 2931:0a01. Only the latter was added to the development version of libmtp, so this might need yet another entry now.

"released in a software update" — hmm.. My Mac is still not showing anything even with Ohijärvi.

On a sidenote isn't libmtp a bit rubbish if it has to be patched every time a new device comes out?

@Setok This has not been released. Plugging in the phone pops up iPhoto with an empty folder, but there is no sight of the phone anywhere else on the system, not in Finder nor in Disk Utility. Tried on 10.9.2 and 10.8.5 - I am reopening the question as it relates to File transfer support in general not iPhoto syncing from the sdcard.

@Penguin you seem to be saying it works with ImageCapture, but I'm not seeing anything there, only an empty Jolla device (which is also why iPhoto doesn't work). Is it really the case that ImageCapture should work?

You can? I'm happy for you ;)

kidding! Did you mean you can't?

is this still an issue? Or do suitable solutions exist for all major platforms (OSX, Microsoft, Linux)?

It is still an issue. While it is now possible to view and manage photos on OS X there is currently still no nice way for a regular user to access media files to upload/download anything on a Mac, without going into developer mode or the somewhat klunky Sailserver.

Can't believe something so basic hasn't been implemented yet. I found out by coincidence that I can get pictures out of my Jolla using Image Capture, and I realized I can send files TO (not from) the phone using bluetooth but that's a far cry from what I expect.

Connecting via USB doesn't work. "Browse Device" by bluetooth doesn't work. Sharing from Jolla to Mac by bluetooth doesn't work. I used to use an awkward workaround via DropBox, but that requires a Internet connection and I live in China now where DropBox is banned, so that doesn't work anymore either. If I have anything other than pictures, I currently have no feasible (for me as a non-dev geek) way to move files such as downloaded PDFs back and forth between phone and my Mac.

Boggles my mind how this is not called a pre-release beta product anymore.

@OlleJolle I agree. The beta tag should not have been removed quite as early. As a way to get around the Dropbox ban, consider usin BitTorrent Sync (http://www.bittorrent.com/sync), it essentially does the same thing as dropbox, but directly between your devices, not via a third party server. I've been using it for about 6 months now, to sync photos from the camera to my laptop and it works great. Obviously it still needs a data connection, but you can set the client to only sync when on Wifi.

@Olle Jolle Exactly, I can't believe how Apple takes so long to bring important updates to their stack to their own users!

@dsilveira, no reason to get snarky. After reading the answers below, I understand that for whatever reason, Jolla decided to use a protocol known for it's shortcomings that has come to life as "part of the 'Windows Media' framework" according to the same Wikipedia page. Why should Apple implement inferior Microsoft technology?

The better question is why Jolla didn't implement USB transfer the same way just about every other USB device with storage I own behaves - my old Nokia N9, my HP TouchPad, my camera - i.e. you connect it and it pops up as a drive. Done. No fiddling with drivers or any extra software or terminal commands. No limit to pictures or "media files".

No, the ball is in Jolla's court here, not Apple's. Why can my Jolla not do what every 50ct USB stick can?

@Olle Jolle well, let's see... Jolla did in fact not do the ultimately best decision, as I've already defended here, in going with MTP, but it probably was the best decision in their time constraints, since USB Mass storage is incompatible with the underlying btrfs volume management. Hopefully they figure out a way to do it.

Putting that aside: someone on another thread said that MTP is a standard, and has such independent from M$crosoft. Every recent Android phone comes with it, alot of mp3 players come with it, so do other devices.

So the only reason Appl€ does not do their job of supporting the MTP standard, is because they much rather support their own brand of crap, instead of supporting the competition's, even though that goes against antitrust regulations, and basic interoperability sanity, not to mention their users good standard of living in community.

So, answering your argument directly, it's Appl€'s fault, not Jolla's

@dsilveira it may be Apple's fault or not (and based on what I've heard, MTP isn't exactly a very good standard), but the market issue is that Apple is a major player in terms of laptops and computers. Not having any solution for this means essentially saying FU to a large portion of the early adopter market. I could still not, hand on heart, recommend it to non geek Mac friends (a large portion of my friends). Even Microsoft and Google have had to address that with their own solutions. So while you might be technically right (and I'm sure there are some willing to debate that too), it's not a very helpful argument.

@dsilveira:

"Jolla did in fact not do the ultimately best decision, ... it's Apple's fault."

Sure, of course.

Look, I'm and end user. I don't give a flying f... about time constraints, what the hell "btrfs" might mean, or your silly $s and €s (how old are you? 13?). All I care about is "Does it work - yes/no?"

Jolla doesn't work the way I need it to, even after several updates and big fanfare of dropping the Beta label. If I want something that works today, I have two choices: throw out the Jolla or throw out my Mac. Which one do you think I'm going to do?

.

Edit:

I just noticed the top "answer" below is actually a request for the same thing for Linux users. Do you want to admonish them too now for using the "£inux brand of crap"?

@Olle Jolle lol

I have iPhoto recognising my Jolla on Mac OS X 10.9.5. Not only does it call it a Jolla, but it also offered to pull every image off the device, including icons and Viber stickers. I now have 1658 images in my iPhoto library!

As far as I can tell, it must have been triggered by installing nautilus from the MacPorts project. I can't see anything else so far, just images.

I have to agree with many other commenters: an easy way to transfer files (photos, music, contact vcards, calendar iCal entries, note files, etc, etc, from and to the Jolla phone from all 3 major computer OSes (Windows, Mac, Linux) is an absolute essential. Anything that requires developer mode or ssh or similar complex workarounds is far from an acceptable solution for normal people. Please can Jolla regard this as a priority area for improvement?

A while ago I suggested to use Netatalk to add AFP support, then the phone would show up in Network and could easily be accessed. I don't care if it officially shows up in my phones system settings or someone publishes it to warehouse but I really want to see this on my phone some day.

Just a "mee too" post. I really do like my new Jolla but that it is not shown as external disc when I connect it to my Mac is a think that got me disappointed. Even my old Firefox-Phone could do that. For now I use Yummy FTP to transfer files but would really like a direkt connection.

Is there any further news about progress on this issue? It surely goes without saying that an easy user-friendly way to backup/sync contacts and other data on your phone is pretty much an absolute essential.

With Sailfish OS 1.1.9 now released for early access, and Sailfish OS 2.0 and the Jolla Tablet public release coming very soon, this is something that really needs to be improved on quite urgently. To my mind you can't justifiably call an OS 2.0 if you don't have a user-friendly means of copying and syncing in place.

As a former long-time happy customer of Nokia/Symbian (and SonyEricsson), I really really wanted Jolla and Sailfish OS to do well and to be able to occupy a useful niche in the smartphone environment, but I'm afraid that progress on what I would regard as very core issues such as this (and WPA Enterprise, etc) just isn't coming soon enough.

I'm afraid that for my everyday mobile phone, core features simply just have to work if you are to have any hope of moving beyond a techie/fiddler user base and becoming more popular. I'm afraid I'm not sure how much longer I can wait for Jolla to reach what I would regard as the minimum usable feature set. You certainly have done very well, with your limited resources, to get as far as you have to date, but I'm sorry that I think I will probably soon have to make a decision about whether I can continue with Sailfish OS as my main phone.. Apple will be making new phone announcements later today, and while the iOS world comes with restrictions (and an annoyingly expensive price tag, even for older-model phones) it does have to be said that Sailfish OS still has a long way to go to reach similar levels of user-friendliness.

Apparently, Jolla changed the idProduct of the phone in one of the updates. With 2.0.1.11, the phone reports as 2931:0a07 for "PC Connection", which means that all the patching in libmtp and other software needs to be updated once again.