Alright, let’s talk about these little gadgets – the USB drives that also have that Lightning plug for iPhones and iPads. I finally decided to grab one a while back. Mostly got tired of juggling cloud storage or needing Wi-Fi just to get a few files off my phone, you know?
So, I ordered one. Didn’t spend ages researching, just picked one that looked decent enough. When it arrived, felt pretty standard. One end USB, the other that familiar Lightning thing. Looked simple enough.
First Try: Plugging it In
Naturally, the first thing I did was stick the Lightning end into my iPhone. And yeah, just as I suspected, it popped up asking me to install an app. Always an app, isn’t it? Okay, fine. Went to the App Store, downloaded their specific app. Wasn’t too big, installed quickly enough.
Opened the app. It looked… okay. A bit basic, but showed storage on the drive and storage on my phone. Seemed straightforward.
Moving Stuff Around
Trying Photos: My main goal was backing up photos without needing my computer or the cloud. Selected a bunch of pictures in the app. There was a ‘copy to drive’ button. Tapped that. It started chugging along. Took a little while, maybe longer than I expected for just photos. Not super slow, but not instant either.
Other Files: Then I tried moving a PDF document I had saved in my Files app. This was a bit more fiddly. Had to use the ‘Share’ function in the Files app, then find the drive’s app in the share sheet options. Took me a minute to figure that out the first time. Once I did, it copied over okay.
- Copying from phone to drive: Worked, needed their app, speed was acceptable.
- Copying from drive to phone: Also worked through the app, pretty much the reverse process.
Connecting to the Computer
Next, I unplugged it from my phone and popped the USB end into my laptop. Good news here – it just showed up like any other regular USB flash drive. No extra software needed on the computer side, thank goodness. I could easily drag and drop the photos and the PDF I’d copied over from my phone. That part was dead simple, just how it should be.
I also tried putting some music files and a movie file onto the drive from my computer. Dragged them over easily.
Back to the iPhone
Plugged it back into the iPhone with the Lightning connector. Opened their app again. Found the music and movie files I just put on there. The app had a built-in player. It played the music okay. Tried the movie file – it played too, though I reckon really huge high-quality video files might struggle, depending on the drive and the app. But for standard stuff, it seemed to manage.
So, What’s the Verdict?
Look, it’s not perfect. The biggest hurdle is needing that specific app on the iPhone/iPad. It adds an extra step and it’s another app to have floating around. The transfer speed through the Lightning port wasn’t amazing, felt slower than using the USB end on a computer.
But is it useful? Yeah, actually. For times when I quickly need to:
- Get photos off my phone to free up space without a computer nearby.
- Grab a file from my computer to view on my iPad when there’s no internet.
- Just have a physical backup of some important stuff from my phone.
It definitely came in handy on a trip where the hotel Wi-Fi was terrible. I could load up documents and a movie onto the drive from my laptop beforehand and access them easily on my iPad during the flight and at the hotel. Saved me some hassle there.
So yeah, it’s one of those things. A bit clunky with the app requirement, not the fastest thing ever via Lightning, but undeniably useful in certain situations. It’s earned a spot in my tech pouch for now. Does the job when I need it to. Simple as that.