Expand memory storage on iOS devices

[EldrickOnIce]

Are we still actually concerned about running a little private network in flight? I'm not scoffing at it, just asking. I never understood it. You used to have to power down device, now airplane mode is good.

[DoubleF]

Originally Posted by EldrickOnIce

Are we still actually concerned about running a little private network in flight? I'm not scoffing at it, just asking. I never understood it. You used to have to power down device, now airplane mode is good.

Airplane mode is ok, but transmissions (for now) are still no go. I'm sure it'll change in a few years, but those safety videos still talk about turning off wifi on laptops.

The rules are inconsistent. You can have a device on but in airplane mode unused just prior takeoff and landing, but no go for using a pair of tin can headphones instead of ear buds connecting to inflight entertainment.

[FurnaceFace]

Originally Posted by EldrickOnIce

Are we still actually concerned about running a little private network in flight? I'm not scoffing at it, just asking. I never understood it. You used to have to power down device, now airplane mode is good.

This is from 2011 and indicates there _can_ be a problem and Honeywell are working on preventing it. Perhaps ~5 years the issue is resolved but do you really want to test it?

http://www.zdnet.com/article/wi-fi-p...with-aircraft/

It's official: using Wi-Fi on a plane can interfere with a pilot's navigational equipment, according to a statement from airline equipment manufacturers Honeywell Avionics and Boeing today.

Also I've been able to connect to my ravpower sitting in the basement when I'm a floor or two up. It's got more power than one would think.

[sureLoss]

^ Airlines in the US have been offering wifi during flights for years now. It really isn't a problem. If it was a real concern, they wouldn't allow any device capable of wifi to be carried onto the plane.

[ken0042]

From what I understand, the difference of having wifi available on the plane and me creating my own hotspot, is that if something happens or there is an emergency, the pilots can turn of the aircraft supplied wifi at a moment's notice. As opposed to asking the flight attendants to ask the 100-300 passengers who has a hotspot setup.

I tend to agree that the risk is pretty low. However in my case being on a Chinese based airline flying into a Chinese controlled country, I'm not going to take any chances.

[Wormius]

Speaking of China. Did you prepare a VPN or anything for when you land? Also, don't expect GPS to work very well. China was weirdly offset when I went when trying to use Google Maps.

[ken0042]

It's just a plane change in Taipei. Destination is Manila, but the longest single flight is from Vancouver to Taipei. I was speaking more about not wanting to break any flight laws by hiding a rogue wifi device.

However I do have a cell plan lined up for when I get to Manila. 5 GB of data for about $30 CDN.

[ken0042]

Just thought I'd bump this with my results, just in case anybody else is looking.

Initially I bought the RAVPower Filehub. At the time it was around $40-50 on Amazon, but seems to have gone up since then. Added a 128 GB SD card and I had plenty of storage. We used it on a road trip to the States and had lots of media options for the family. At one point had 3 of us streaming different shows with no issues. There were a few cons to consider:
- Battery life isn't great, about 8 hours. In the car, just plug it in. But for the 12 hour flight that wasn't going to be a good option.
- You need VLC installed as that is the only 3rd party player supported. And you have to kind of "right click" on your iPad to get it to play in VLC. The built in player could only handle a few file formats.
- Interface is also a little flakey. Will sometimes jump back to home for no reason.
- Due to the wifi interface, it can interfere with a phone getting emails and iMessages. Your phone will try to use wifi before cellular data, and because this wifi connection may not be on the internet (like in your car), we would often get a bunch of messages after walking away from the car. If you are using this at home, you can attach your home wifi.

I also went and bought one of these:
Leef iBridge 3. I got mine on sale for $80 just before Christmas.

This ended up being the better product. The interface was better as it played everything on it's own, and it allowed me to be able to transfer files back and forth. So I could copy something from the Leef to AVPlayer on my iPad, then remove the Leef so my son could use it on his iPad. We also did that if we needed to charge the iPad, copy the file over and then unplug the Leef, and then plug into power.

Also worth noting that China Airlines does not have in-seat power on their older 747s, newer 747s, nor their Airbus A340.

[FurnaceFace]

I'd be curious if this worked as well as the one you bought. I like the microSD option.

https://www.amazon.ca/Leef-iAccess-M...s=leaf+ibridge

Edit. Read some reviews and I'm encouraged. Also BB has it on sale for nearly half off. Hard to go wrong for $40. http://www.bestbuy.ca/en-CA/product/.../10406907.aspx

[ken0042]

When I was looking so many of the devices seemed only to be interested in photos; in being able to transfer them back and forth. What made mine slick was the built in media player interface. If the SD card version also has that- it might be an option to consider.

At least with Best Buy if you get it and it doesn't work, you can return it. I'd be curious to find out how it works for you.

[REDVAN]

I boguht a Seagate "wireless" HD a few years ago in order to watch movies (iPad is only 16GB, so a few apps and it's full).

Worked pretty well, but significantly more expensive.

[Street Pharmacist]

Originally Posted by Fuzz

Alternative:

That's a sleeping pill...

[topfiverecords]

Originally Posted by Street Pharmacist

That's a sleeping pill...

I can't imagine you'd want the other blue pill on a long overseas flight.

It will provide some expansion though.

[FurnaceFace]

Originally Posted by ken0042

When I was looking so many of the devices seemed only to be interested in photos; in being able to transfer them back and forth. What made mine slick was the built in media player interface. If the SD card version also has that- it might be an option to consider.

At least with Best Buy if you get it and it doesn't work, you can return it. I'd be curious to find out how it works for you.

From the Leef site:

FILE COMPATIBILITY

Video
.mp4, .m4v, .mpv, .mov, .mpg, .mkv, .wmv, .flv, .3gp, .gif, .avi

Audio
.wav, .aac, .aif, .aiff, .caf, .m4a, .mp3
NOTE: Apple does not allow iTunes DRM audio & video files to be played on external apps

Images
.jpg, .tiff, .gif, .png

Documents
doc and .docx (Microsoft Word); .htm and .html (web pages); .key (Keynote); .numbers (Numbers); .pages (Pages); .pdf (Preview and Adobe Acrobat); .ppt and .pptx (Microsoft PowerPoint); .txt (text); .rtf (rich text format); .vcf (contact information); .xls and .xlsx (Microsoft Excel); .ics

Other than raw images it seems to cover it.

[FurnaceFace]

Bump. My Leef iAccess arrived. In the 10 mins I've played with it, I like. It seems to work as Ken describes the ibridge. It took a couple of unplugs, plug back in and a full shutdown restart of the app to get it to recognize but that seems like a 1 time thing. It's getting recognized each time now. Slightly annoying popup asking if you want the app to recognize the device (I don't know why you wouldn't) but that seems minor/picky. The app is super simple to use.

I tested by copying a couple of camera videos that were on my ipad. They didn't transfer at rocket speeds but came across reasonably fine. I assume it's limited by the speed of the card and not the lightning connector. I'll test this more when I'm home and have a larger/newer card to work with. The one idiosyncrasy is the progress bar is based on files, not file size. I copied the two videos and wondered for a bit if they were being copied as the progress indicator didn't change. It then went from 0 to 50% then 100% once the files were copied. That might just be an iOS thing though, I'm not sure. After I copied the files I fired up one of the videos and it played on the ipad fine. I have not tried with movies or other content that wasn't on the ipad first.

In any event, for $40, on first blush this looks like a good product and will be a yuuuge help on trips to backup photos to. Now to buy more microSD cards.