How can I retrieve photos from an iPhone 4 without using wifi(probably) or cell data? So I am blinded by anger at this point. I cannot believe this isn't possible in some way.
In short:
Iphone 4 has a bad battery, photos filling storage, out of date Ios so no wifi, 3g data available is much less than the amount needed to move. This ideally would be solved without leaving the house because it shouldn't be this hard in the first place and also blizzard.

Here are the specifics, along with some rough ideas:

My mother has an iphone 4 that is completely full of photos. She will not delete any significant amount of them.

Wifi is greyed out because IOS is out of date and my mom does not apply any software update ever at all. Can I FORCE wifi on somehow? I am familiar with linux and windows and android, I know I could force that flag somehow on those devices...

I cannot update IOS because it requires 1.6 GB of free space, in the storage manager thing if I add up every single app besides photos it does not add up to 1.6gbs. It's all photos. Do I actually need 1.6 gigs in the first place?

I can pair it with her macbook over bluetooth, but apparently only tethering is supported because Apple, I can't pair it with my android devices because Apple.
 Is there any way to break that restriction to access the iphones storage? the devices can see each other well enough for apple to tell me to f*** myself... 

I may have a bluetooth capable windows laptop, if I do I could use a linux live cd or stick and this adds a bluetooth linux laptop as well, but not bt windows/linux at the same time.

The phone has 3g data, but her data cap is half used and the total amount of photos is triple the entire plan anyhow, having her move 1.6 gigs of pictures one by one over email or text is out because of that and general sanity. Also Icloud can't be made to update over 3g because apple.

The battery is bad, so it will only boot from a wall charger, I can't plug it into another computer and have it run.
So can I make a USB port on another computer pump out more juice?
-I have an old desk that has a power supply embedded into the back, It has two usb ports, a regular plug jack and of course the power cord to the wall. Can I reconfigure that to function as a hub maybe?

What I really don't want to hear though I may have to is:take it to a store, replace battery or go to a store and get a battery to replace yourself.

Particularly I don't want to go to an apple store because some hapless kid will get a feature rich/function poor brick punched right through their face.

-sorry I am so angry about this. I thought it would take ten minutes when she asked me to get the photos, but if someone asked me a question like this about stuff I normally use(I don't deal much with apple) I would find it a fascinating challenge, so I figured I'd ask, and every google search I've ever made for deep tech stuff has led me to stackexchange eventually.
As a sidenote, the phones WiFi chip seems to be defective, WiFi will work no matter how old the iOS-version is. Maybe try resetting network settings in Settings - General.

Anyhow - I believe your only option will be to use a cable to get the pictures off the phone. Have you tried all the computers you have at home? Some devices give out more juice than others. Another way would of course be some cloud service, then again, not the best option without WiFi..