How to Move Files to an iPhone Through a USB Cable
By Julius Vandersteen
The iPhone is a mobile phone from Apple. It has a multi-touch screen, displays photos and books, plays music and videos, and runs games and applications. You can use the iPhone to shoot pictures and movies, and connect to the Internet via Wi-Fi or a cellular data network. If you have files on your computer that you would like to use on your iPhone, certain file types can be moved to the iPhone through a USB cable.
Step 1
Launch iTunes, the free application from Apple that you use to manage your iPhone.
Step 2
Plug one end of the included USB cord into the iPhone, and plug the other end into a USB port on your computer. The iPhone will appear in the left pane of the iTunes window.
Step 3
Click the icon of the iPhone, and then click the "Summary" tab in the iTunes window. Click "Manually Manage Music and Videos," and then click "Apply" if you want to prevent iTunes from automatically syncing content to the iPhone. When you set iTunes to manually manage your files, you can pick what you want to move to the iPhone over the USB cable.
Step 4
Click on a playlist in your iTunes library to display songs in the window, and drag them from the iTunes library to the icon of your iPhone. They will copy to the iPhone. Click on "Movies," "TV Shows" "Podcasts," "Books" or "Apps" under "Library" in the left pane, and then drag items from these categories that you downloaded from the iTunes store into the iPhone icon to copy them over the USB cable.
Step 5
Click on "Books" under "Devices" in the left pane. Drag a PDF book from a folder on your computer into the iTunes window to copy it to your iPhone, which you can read using the free iBooks app (see Resources).
Step 6
Click on the iPhone's icon, and then click on "Photos" in the iTunes window. Click on the checkbox next to "Sync Photos," and then select a folder on your computer from the pull-down menu. You can also use the pull-down menu to select photos from iPhoto or Aperture on a Mac, and from Adobe Photoshop Elements 8.0 or later on a PC. Click "All Folders" or "Selected Folders," and then click "Sync" to move photos from your computer to the iPhone.
References
Writer Bio
Julius Vandersteen has been a freelance writer since 1999. His work has appeared in “The Los Angeles Times,” “Wired” and “S.F. Weekly.” Vandersteen has a Bachelor of Arts in journalism from San Francisco State University.