[Macworld]

Post your comments for Wi-Drive provides external storage for your iPad, iPhone here

[kent909]

I think everyone is missing the point here.

[leicaman]

As a network extender, does it allow you to sign into protected networks? Or do you have to leave your wifi network unprotected to use this feature?

[JDW]

Fellow iPad users, here's the skinny of it, verbatim from the article itself:

"There’s one major limitation to the Wi-Drive..."
"To load files on the Wi-Drive, you connect it to your Mac via USB."

Once you understand that, you can stop reading. What we all want is the ability to attach a hard drive or flash drive to the iPad's connector (no Mac required) and transfer files to/from that drive. AND, it would be nice if we could do that without having to jailbreak. The reasons for this are many, but I will end with one example. I live in Japan. If I take my family back to the states, I want to shoot 1080p videos and photos of my kids. If we spend a full day at Disneyland, I may shoot more than my iPad can store internally. Why not allow me to offload some of that content to an external flash drive? It's only logical.

[stimarcop4tf]

JDW, on 27 March 2012 - 02:14 PM, said:

Fellow iPad users, here's the skinny of it, verbatim from the article itself:

"There’s one major limitation to the Wi-Drive..."
"To load files on the Wi-Drive, you connect it to your Mac via USB."

Once you understand that, you can stop reading. What we all want...

... is for people like you to stop claiming to speak for all of us.

[Dan]

You can get the 32GB iPad for $100 more than the 16GB. Seems a better option than a 16GB external anything at $77.

[JDW]

Dan, on 27 March 2012 - 04:38 PM, said:

You can get the 32GB iPad for $100 more than the 16GB. Seems a better option than a 16GB external anything at $77.

Dan, I actually bought my iPad3 with 32GB because I knew that the sheer size of Retina apps in combination with the 1080p video capability would eat up storage space very fast. Lex Friedman wrote an excellent Macworld article on that very topic on March 10th:
http://www.macworld....age_crunch.html

It would have been best to get the 64GB version, I know, but I could not justify the added cost. The point is that USB flash drives are quite cheap these days. The slower flash drives are rock bottom cheap. For example, HP has a 32GB flash drive with 2-year warranty for $26 and free shipping at NewEgg. Compare that with the $100 cost for a bump from 16GB to 32GB on the iPad. Apple is out to make money, and as an AAPL investor I say, "more power to them!" But as a buyer I prefer to exercise some financial discretion. It makes logical sense to empower users to add external storage as they see fit. Apple has refused to do that. That is their choice, but it's my choice to see out a way around it! I'd love to see an iPad developer find a way to bring us external USB flash storage for the iPad. Because like I said, if you take a long international trip, you may not always have net access to offload your photos and 1080p videos. And in that case, you either offload to a USB flash drive (which you cannot do now), or you just stop taking pictures and video. And although it makes sense to bring a dedicated camera on such trips, the fact remains that we paid money for the iPad for a reason, and it would be nice to remove some of its artificially imposed limitations (within reason).

[LanceMillerezqc]

If only people would demand that Apple add some things that are standard on other tablets, like a mini sd slot, micro hdmi slot or a standard usb slot. I don't know about others but I refuse to have my pockets full of external dongles or an external flashdrive, that requires a pc to be used & adds $140 to the total cost of owning an iPad. How hard could it have been to include a mini sd slot that uses $20 flash cards? i've been a fanboy for years & was so disappointed when I had to go to an Asus Transformer Prime to get something as simple as SDHC data storage & a Mini HDMI port.

[xmitman]

The main problem I have is I can't use it at home without fully shutting down my wifi network. Existing wifi networks shut off all reception to the device. A real bummer as far as I am concerned and a major problem with this device.

[haldor42]

Has anyone thought of using a Eye-Fi card in your (Video)camera/scanner? Then you can transmit data to your iPad via the Eye-Fi app...
Just saying...

[JDW]

haldor42, on 28 March 2012 - 04:43 AM, said:

Has anyone thought of using a Eye-Fi card in your (Video)camera/scanner? Then you can transmit data to your iPad via the Eye-Fi app...
Just saying...

Transferring "TO" the iPad is easy. I use DropBox for that. But getting files OFF the iPad (and onto a USB flash drive or hard drive) is the near impossible part. And since the article is about "external storage for your iPad" it only makes logical sense that we would be discussion how to get files OFF the iPad versus onto it.

[MrLizard]

JDW, on 27 March 2012 - 02:14 PM, said:

Fellow iPad users, here's the skinny of it, verbatim from the article itself:

"There’s one major limitation to the Wi-Drive..."
"To load files on the Wi-Drive, you connect it to your Mac via USB."

Once you understand that, you can stop reading. What we all want is the ability to attach a hard drive or flash drive to the iPad's connector (no Mac required) and transfer files to/from that drive. AND, it would be nice if we could do that without having to jailbreak. The reasons for this are many, but I will end with one example. I live in Japan. If I take my family back to the states, I want to shoot 1080p videos and photos of my kids. If we spend a full day at Disneyland, I may shoot more than my iPad can store internally. Why not allow me to offload some of that content to an external flash drive? It's only logical.

That's not what this product is designed to do, despite the slightly misleading review headline (which isn't the manufacturer's fault.)

But even if they wanted to manufacture an external drive that could do that, iOS does not support writing to external USB drives. You would need to request this feature from Apple via www.apple.com/feedback/ipad.html. If Apple add the feature, manufacturers can start to create such devices.

The product being reviewed serves its intended purpose very well though, which is to offer a useful way to view additional content on the iPad/iPhone which wouldn't otherwise fit on the device itself.

This post has been edited by MrLizard: 28 March 2012 - 05:22 AM

[mscaldas]

can I connect more than one device at the same time?

[jrabe01]

Fat32 is a horrible solution for Mac users. Fail. Most of my files have names and sizes that don't work with that ancient windows format. Are there comparable products that don't have that AWFUL limitation?