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Craig Federighi on iPad's Long-Awaited External Drive Support: 'We're Willing to Acknowledge the 1990s'
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The ability to load, and unload data, while travelling or offline is something I’ve been wanting for a long time. It’s less of an issue now that we have bigger iOS storage, but I’d still use this on a longer trip.
If I'm shooting on a Sony a7Riii using uncompressed raw, that's 80mb per photo, and over several hours at night a timelapse could be 400-500GB of photos.
Damn right I'm keeping that on an external drive.
Apple are soooo out of touch with professionals.
Damn right I'm keeping that on an external drive.
Apple are soooo out of touch with professionals.
They clearly aren't that great if it's so obviously known they're gimped products. It's not just Apple's arrogant attitude, it's their lacklustre product line.
That's OK. You don't have to use this feature.
For me, I think this was the key improvement of the day.
Now a base 64G iPad will be expandable with cheap USB memory you can transfer from Mac to PC to iPad. yeah it's sneaker-net. I get the 90s reference. But since inbuilt memory was still such a premium very few could afford the top end device.
Going on holidays now won't mean a pre-trip load decision. Take all your files, your videos and music with you. Possibly you wont even need to take you laptop anymore. I've never taken my laptop out of the bag during a flight. For many business travellers they wont have to either.
Will plugging a phone into an iPad let you access the files there? I'm guessing yes. Hope so anyway.
I'm using my phone more for photos and video too. Rarely use the camera I also lug around in the bag since AirDrop works well and is easy to share the photos you want with other iPhone users. Can you use a hub and plug in multiple drives? Would be nice to move files around on external devices without needing to copy to iPad and then off again to a different drive.
The whole system is really hanging together well. The improved Files app is like icing on the cake!
It's taken Apple a LOOOOONG time to acknowledge the memory/price issue.
Surface tablets were more productive and flexible because you could expand their memory.
This levels the playing field again.
What a silly stupid comment....
However. Good on them for bringing in that sort of support we've been asking for, even they think it's "straight out of the 90s" or whatever.
iPadOS is definitely having me considering buying myself a new iPad right now.
However. Good on them for bringing in that sort of support we've been asking for, even they think it's "straight out of the 90s" or whatever.
iPadOS is definitely having me considering buying myself a new iPad right now.
My first reaction when I read the statement was that they simply just don't get it. Product development often gets into a state where they don't live in the real world. Then I realized this has been the norm at Apple for a number of years where it is form over function (dongles, headphone jack, USB-A dropped across the board, etc).
Of course when it suits them they call "function over form" like they do for the new MacPro, and then charge you a kidney for it.
Of course when it suits them they call "function over form" like they do for the new MacPro, and then charge you a kidney for it.
It's Apple, of course they're gonna have a condescending attitude towards their users.
What about iPhone, Mac, Apple TV, Homepod? None of those seem to be in a "market leading position" as you put it. Sure, iPad might be the leading tablet and Apple Watch the leading smart watch but that doesn't mean they aren't losing sales because of their elitist attitude.
I work around a mixed bag of people from IT to complete luddites and what surprised me was that people's perception on Apple's hubris and lack of a touch on reality is wider spread than I thought. How can that not translate to fewer sales?
(And for what it's worth, Craig is my fav Apple exec)
When the first iPhone was introduced, Steve Jobs said something similar when he said the phone application had a keypad if you still want to dial numbers.
I just searched (not exhaustively) but could not find any USB-C drives at that price. Have they come down that low already? Plus don't compare local to cloud just based on data size. Cloud serves a different function in storage solutions.
Do you have a USB C to USB 3.0 adapter? Then there’s plenty of options in that price range.
You must not be a photographer. You see the cameras have memory cards in them, and in order to get the images onto an iPad, at the moment you need to have a computer, card reader, etc.
So even if you don’t use the new functionality, it will be highly useful to many of us.
there seems to be an unlimited supply if tears here. if only we can make hydropower with it. People crying about cloud storage prices when he literally said AIRDROP... and this was cause they've ADDED support for external devices.
So weird that these relic external drives from the 90s are sold on Apple’s website today. Or is the Mac a relic? Well I guess the Mac Pro 2013 they continue to sell kind of is.
Yes. But you need the camera connection kit, and a power source into the dongle. An external battery supplies enough power for this. The lightning port doesn't supply enough power, so you need a power source through the adapter.
Could never figure out why Apple always assumed we all live and work in a world that is 100% connected by wifi. There is no WiFi for most Government agencies nor for other organizations that handle sensitive data. Most can't even get cellular coverage inside due to the structure of these buildings. This change allows manufacturers to make new items to take advantage of the read/write capabilities concerning storage which can be used offline.
Apple execs like Federighi have the "smartest guys in the room" mentality. He's on record dismissing touchscreen laptops, while 2-in-1's seem to be fairly popular. Having committed to that position, they come out with the Touch Bar.
I thought they had already acknowledged the 90s with their music and fashion choices.
That's pretty arrogant a comment coming from a company that still has a proprietary connection on their iPhones and ship them with USB A cables - flip to USB-C on both ends and come out of the 80s please
iCloud still need one last feature and that is moving your photos to a folder in files and then deleting them off your iOS device and they remain on the cloud.
This paradigm of deleting photos off your iOS device automatically deletes them off the iCloud is reduculus.
This paradigm of deleting photos off your iOS device automatically deletes them off the iCloud is reduculus.
And yet the overwhelming attitude from people on these forums is that if Apple doesn’t do what that ONE person wants Apple is dumb and stupid and wrong. I see more arrogance in these forums than Apple on its worst day.
So few people have any clue how software and hardware development work, they assume Apple doesn’t do the things they want out of arrogance or stupidity without EVER considering the myriad other, simpler reasons like:
1. Other features are higher priority.
2. Demand for the feature is limited at best.
3. Adding the feature requires far more work than people realize.
The bigger problem is the type of people who comment in forums like this one are different from the majority of people out there, particularly when it comes to tech. No where is this more obvious than people who complain about things like emojis or Animoji’s. You know what gets most non-tech nerds excited? External storage on iPads or MeMoji stickers? Hint, it’s the latter.
So yeah, Apple can come across as arrogant sometimes, but like a star athlete they can usually back it up with being right most of the time. It’s fine to realize Apples priorities don’t line up with yours, it’s not fine to assume that your priorities are the only ones that matter. I’ll take Apples arrogance over the usual MacRumors forum arrogance any day of the week.
And then people on the other side will moan-n-whine about their beloved pre-2016 MBPs and two year old iMacs needing a USB-A to USB-C DONGLE, of all things. The horrors.
