Synchronise photos/videos to PC

[Wustpisk]

I have recently got an Xperia T after having had a Nokia N8 which came to the end of its contract and was damaged after two years of hard use. I'm afraid I was taken in by the hype surrounding android as I am regretting not getting it fixed - also there do not appear to be any phones that offer the same fantastic symbian belle platform which I now realise is far superior in most respects. After trying to figure it out for about a month I have a long list of issues, one of which is the apparent impossibility of syncronising my photographs to PC without having to hook up wires. With my Nokia Suite I could just switch on my PC, and my photos and videos would be automatically uploaded via bluetooth or by wi-fi. Can I do this with Xperia T?

It looks asthough there might be a way of doing this by wi-fi, but despite repeated attempts it cannot locate my phone. Very frustrating.

Any ideas? Thanks.

[Wustpisk]

Well you learn something new every day - I had no idea google was behind it. No wonder it is so complicated! As for the 95% and 1% - you're right, I plucked that out of the air. I'm just basing it on my knowledge and that of everybody I know. In fact I am probably more savvy than most as I use gmail and google translate quite a lot, also google maps and Chrome. However I can't see the point of the google plus - it's facebook with people you don't know - I don't know anybody who uses it, and I found that all my photographs were being uploaded to it only to be lost in a black hole somewhere and it was eating up my monthly allowance. A quick search (on google!) found that I was not the only person with this issue, and lots of people wanted to know how to disable it. I suppose if my music is in the clouds then every time I listen to something that way, or if I wanted to look at photographs, I would have to use up more of that allowance - not much good if I only have 200MB a month limit ... Maybe I'm being old-fashioned, but I like to have easy access to my music and pictures. I just feel safer that way. What's a google drive?

Now you mention it, I had a look and found a little button on chrome that says 'web store' hidden in the bottom corner  (I've been using Chrome for a couple of years, and I really hadn't seen before). It's too much to take in. If I downloaded an app from there, how would I be able to use it on my phone? Now I am certain that I only know about 1% of its functions

I really doubt whether many people know about this feature and this is borne out by the number of users. For example Picasa, which I do use occasionally and have done for years - is that google as well? - only has 1.5 million users (according to the number underneath), which in the grand scheme of things is not very many.

But this is all stuff for the PC - I can't see any way of making use of this on a phone, not least because editing text and navigating between screens, etc, is far too fiddly. Buying a cinema ticket, for example, is so much quicker by just opening your laptop and doing it that way, and that goes for whether it is symbian or android. I'm sure you would agree with that.

Yes, symbian is dead, but I am missing it dreadfully  

[Uliwooly]

google plus its like facebook BUT it has another advantage to backup all your videos and pictures

picasa it is part of google, but so is google plus so must users will use google plus to backup their pictures which are also synced to picasa.

you need to do one thing, stop trying to do everything as you used to with your symbian phone and look for alternatives, you'll see it's not as hard as it is, you are just getting used to a new OS, that's why it seems a lot more complicated that it really is.

remember that just because you just find or figure out settings and what not it doesn't mean that most people don't know about them. you will be surprised.

Don't forget to mark the Correct Answers & Helpful Answers

unrelated topic, if you have some time please check this thread

http://talk.sonymobile.com/message/244522#244522

[Wustpisk]

OK I'll take your word for it. Can I use this cloud thing to transfer photographs from one phone to another? I was trying to do this with my wife earlier - usually I would just bluetooth it, but this time it was an almightly palaver and it took about 30 minutes to bluetooth over 2 photos, and I was beginning to lose the will to live. Somehow we managed it in the end, but it wasn't obvious. She has a Samsung Galaxy III - it was £20/month offer and it had good reviews - but I don't know if it is compatible with the Xperia T. Maybe I should have got one of those as well. I was just suckered in my the promise of a great camera, but I've yet to see any evidence of that. She only uses heres for taking photos of the kids and playing Patience, sometimes facebook as well, but it would be good to find a way of transferring some of those pictures to the PC so they can be edited in picasa and printed out.

I can hear it now - 'there's an app for that' 

[Uliwooly]

you can use NFC to transfer photos/videos/etc (android beam)

[Wustpisk]

OK - I'll have to google that. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Near_field_communication  that's the second thing I learned today. I really doubt whether many people know about that trick!

Thanks

[Uliwooly]

lol it's advertised all over (android beam/nfc) even making fun of the iCrap products that lack this feature.

Samsung Galaxy S3

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QR8A3T6sPzU

Xperia T smarttags

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LfkFgtoQtFQ

sony wireless speakers

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A_5vCIbGZeI

[Wustpisk]

I had a look at that smart tag video. Are these things generally available in the shops, or is it something virtual that doesn't really exist, but you are supposed to know about? (nothing surprises me any more!). I'd rather not have to go out to the Sony shop, wherever it is, wasting time and money having to get something that doesn't seem to serve much use. Surely if there is a wi-fi signal available it automatically switches to it anyway - at least that is what I have found when I come home without having to remember to swipe a gadget. My car has satnav in it anyway, so it would be redundant in the car. If they really do exist then it is just another thing to get lost, especially with three little boys at home.

OK - I have found a thing on my phone that says NFC - there is a dark grey circle with 'Turn on NFC to activate Xperia SmartTag' - I press on it and I reach a page that says favourite actions in a star and there is a random list under it (do people really find this useful?) but nothing that says turn on NFC, so I go back to the previous page, and next to the star there is another circle with 'Turn on NFC to activate Xperia SmartTag' which does nothing when I press it. I would have thought that pressing it would do what it says on the tin..

Is there an idiot's guide somewhere that gives some simple steps as to how it works?

I repeat - I honestly doubt that if you get three or more people together who own this type of phone, even if they did for some reason want to spontaneously share pictures and videos on the street as portrayed in the advert (does that ever happen?), that they would know about the existence of such a function. I'm going to try it tomorrow, but based on a little skype survey I did just now with a statistically insignificant group of friends, I'm not holding out much hope But it might just catch on ...

[Uliwooly]

you don't have to buy sony branded electronics, NFC should work with well any NFC either computers, speakers, other phones etc.

smarttags it's ok if you have multiple things that you have to do during your day so you don't have to set up your phone everytime, you can use different launchers, so one could be for work, one for  school, another to work out, etc.

on the home screen tap anywhere on the screen > tap on the plus sign, add smart tags widget > now you can set them up, quite simple

[Wustpisk]

It is very kind of you to try and help, but I presume that the widget you mention is the one that I have on my screen and which I described above - it does absolutely nothing except sit there like an unresponsive grey blob 

Neither my wife nor I can find a similar facility on the Galaxy S III either - you say that this is a major part of their marketing strategy, but it certainly isn't obvious. Just by chance a friend popped around who has the same phone and he was fascinated to discover that such an option existed - but we still couldn't get it to work. I harboured a mild fantasy that we would be like the pretty young things on the youtube video, maybe watch an on-screen video while we were sending these files over (as you do), but sadly to no avail.

I'm afraid my life is quite mundane so I don't think I need to programme everything - it is impossible to know what is going to happen even in the next five minutes what with three little boys running around wanting attention - so this function is clearly not for me. I really do wonder who it IS actually aimed at.

I have already learned a lot this evening, for which I thank you, but the main thing that I have learned is that there is a vast amount of stuff out there that I know I will never use. But I would really love to know how this particular trick works as it seems to be quite nifty.

But for now I give up. I'll just keep muddling along with wires and bluetooth

[Uliwooly]

smart tags it's only for Xperias and it's to set up different apps or settings.

try this

settings > more > nfc > turn it on > open the album app > select the picture or video that you want to share > put the back of your xperia with the SIII together and then tap on the screen, it should share the picture, video, app, etc