What to do with an old iPhone or an iPad is a frequently asked question these days. Sell it? Give it to little ones? Use it as a cutting board? Well, in this article we came up with 3 uses for an old iPhone & iPad you won't meet anywhere else.
Let me start with a little backstory:
While developing our Mac & Windows application – WALTR, we noticed that many of our customers just LOVE to use our app for their old devices. Here’s just one piece of feedback that we’ve received:
‘Since I’ve started using WALTR, must say – proved to be very useful, since I can plug the kids’ iPads up to the Mac Mini before a long trip, and 10 minutes later, they’re good to go…’
This is how we knew that these ways actually work. Especially for iPads or iPhones that you don’t know what to do with.
Before we proceed – Let’s start with a couple of common facts:
Fact #1: There is a great number of people still keeping older generations of iPhones & iPads at home.
Fact #2: iOS 11 and the majority of modern applications aren’t available for these devices.
Fact #3: Even now – older iOS gadgets have good storage size and Tech specs.
In the end, scarcely any of them are actually used in everyday life.
Taking into account our own experience and the big deal of feedback from our customers, we came up with the following ideas on what to do with old iPhone or iPad.
What to do with an old iPhone, iPad, iPod touch?
All the below-listed scenarios require just 1 application – WALTR. We’ll show you how it works in this very article.
Watch Movies on an iPad (or iPhone) Offline
Your iPad (no matter how old it is) has a good screen and is perfect for watching movies. And our Mac OS & Windows app WALTR is the easiest, fastest tool to copy videos to iPhone or iPad without using iTunes or any converting software.
We prepared a short screencast to show how this works:
What’s great about this software – is that you just install it once on your computer but it turns out to be good for any iOS device you’re having: iPhone, iPod, iPad – absolutely no difference in generation.
This way you can get a pretty tasty chunk of movies on your iPad and you then can watch it on-the-go. Here’s how:
Step 1. Start WALTR.
Download WALTR and install it. The download is free, so you can test the app before purchasing it.
WALTR PRO
Step 2. Locate your video & music and drag it into WALTR.
Before using, connect your iPhone to computer via USB
What’s good about it – WALTR’s gonna eat absolutely any format you throw in it. Whether it’s AVI, MKV or WMV or any other file extension – it gets converted on-the-fly. As the result you get your file inside of your device ASAP.
The app simply swaps the container of your file while transferring it to your iPad or iPhone.
Let’s say you have that awesome movie in MKV, but naturally iOS devices won’t play it back.
In this case, WALTR will convert MKV to MOV on-the-fly and sync it to your device. Converting won’t take much time too: the uploading speed is approximately 2GB per minute!
Then you’ll get this ‘Done’ message.
Step 3. Play your file.
WALTR lets you play back your file from the default iOS app – natively. Directly from the Home Videos folder. This is both more convenient and efficient.
FYI – this works for music just as seamlessly.
WALTR handles all the audio formats you can find on the web. So be sure to use WALTR to copy music to iPhone, iPad or any iPod ever created.
This method lets you keep your hands clean off iTunes sync. WALTR has special built-in technology that lets you bypass it.
Make an Awesome hi-tech eBook
WALTR 2 works even simpler than its forerunner. The exclusive feature is that it can work via WiFi sync. (no cords needeed! phew)
For the time being, the supported file formats are: PDF and ePub.
With the WiFI sync feature you can make it instantaneous, the scheme stays the same.
Step 1. You launch WALTR
Step 2. Push an eBook into WALTR 2
Step 3. Open it via iBooks.app
Easy!
With its big display, iPad’s gonna make a terrific reading tool. Well, same goes for iPhone.
Enjoy HD Music on your old iPad & iPhone
Another idea of what to do with an old iPhone, iPod is to turn it into an ultimate music player. Just like with the movies, iPad 1, 2 and iPhones proved to be a great way to listen to music, even though there’s a restriction on the music formats you can play back.
Officially iPad, iPhone or iPod touch support AAC, MP3, WAV, AIFF. This does not include Flac (lossless music), APE, CUE, WMA, OGG and other spread formats you can find on the web.
This means WALTR is the best way to copy music to iPhone, since it accepts absolutely any formats even FLAC or WAV. So be sure to drop any music file into WALTR and get the outcome simultaneously on your iPad, iPhone or iPod touch.
Btw, with WALTR 2 you can put music on any iPod released after 2001. This means – ALL the iPod series are covered.
Essential Features of WALTR:
Convert AVI, FLAC, WMA, CUE, MKV to MOV for iPhone, iPad
No need for cords – Transfer files to iPhone over Wi-Fi
Support of all Apple mobile devices ever created
Bottom Line
Seems like the launch of the original iPad wasn’t that long ago – but a Whole Lot has changed since then. For example, could you imagine in 2007 something like 3D Touch, 4K Video? And finally – Live Photos?
Being still good for its time, first iPhone models grew out of date.
For the time writing this article – iOS 11 has seen the world. As always, the only thing that changed is – everything. New Messages features, Maps improvements, Memories, Siri SDK.. mhm what else?Well, this – iPad 1,2,3 gens and iPhone 4 are not compatible.
New tempting features made iOS 10 a hit even before it was released, yet it’s not available for many of the older generation devices.
And If you decide to upgrade, you can’t just throw your old good iPad in the junk bin, can you? Same it’s useless to let it collect the dust. It’s live and kicking and still works well.
If you wonder what to do with old iPhone or iPad – There’re plenty of third-party applications letting you turn your iPad into a second display or into a digital photo frame or even into a home camera monitor.
It’s also incredibly easy to copy videos to iPhone, iPad or even iPod. It’s really easy to breathe new life into your old device with the techiniques we showed above.
The best part – you may use these tips for any iPhone, iPad or iPod (including even Classic series!).
And more than this, you still can mount it on the wall or in your car or use it as a second display – because all three ideas we just shared also go absolutely well with other craziest suggestions you might heard of.
Peace out!
Josh Brown
CEO at Softorino
macOS and 
Windows.
WALTR PRO
macOS &
Windows
