Expand memory storage on iOS devices

[ken0042]

Given the number of us that travel, I am guessing I’m not the first person to come across this issue. Basically I have an 18 hour flight coming up, so looking at some options.
I have a laptop available; with plenty of storage and a 4 hour battery. The challenge is trying to charge a laptop on an aircraft.
I want to bring my iPad mini 2 which can be charged easier, but only has 16 GB of storage.
I also have my iPhone which has a 64 GB capacity, but a very small screen.

So that brings me to my question- does anybody have any experience with expanding the storage on an iOS device? Mostly for playing videos, and I have VLC as well as AV Player installed.
I found http://www.gearbest.com/mouse/pp_319287.html which plugs into the lightning port. Obviously I won’t be able to charge on the fly, but seems to add to the storage.
Also looking at https://www.amazon.ca/RAVPower-Fileh...ct_top?ie=UTF8 which gives me some extra versatility and charging ability.

Thoughts/experiences?

[DownhillGoat]

No experience, but I've been contemplating one of these.

https://www.amazon.ca/Lexar-JumpDriv...565444&sr=1-10

Considering how finicky off brand lightning cables can be, I'd probably stick with a more known brand for this as well.

[Wormius]

Are you saying that the 64gb on your iPhone is enough? You could cast the movies from your iPhone to the iPad of the screen size works. Not great for battery life, but should work.

[sa226]

Maybe you have already looked at this.....Who are you flying with?

In seat charging is becoming more and more prevalent these days and the aircraft may have a charging port available, though I have found Air Canada's to be a bit hit and miss.

Also, how many movies are you going to watch? For something with the screen size of an ipad mini, you could get away with movies at a gig or under in file size.

What wormius says is a good idea too. Then if you're into that sort of thing you could bring a portable battery charger for extra juice. (A big one)

[EldrickOnIce]

+1 for transferring from one device to iPad. Watch, delete and transfer again.
I bought this 20000mAh portable charger from Amazon for $30. It is excellent. Outputs 2 amps. Would keep the iPad running the whole time, if necessary.
https://www.amazon.ca/gp/product/B00...?ie=UTF8&psc=1

[ken0042]

The longest leg of the trip is Vancouver to Taipei; about 12 hours. Flying with China Airlines. They show USB power; which is why I'm not as concerned with charging the iPad. I do also have portable power.

I hadn't thought about casting; nor even used it. I'm thinking that would interfere with playing Angry Birds as I watch my movies. I may have to play around with it.

[DoubleF]

Is the 4 hour laptop battery with or without wifi/bluetooth on? I've stretched a 3 hour charge to 5 hours on older laptops by reducing resolution, lower brightness and sometimes calibration settings that remind you of Windows XP OS wise, but video wise, is unchanged. An hour or two extra is still nice.

That and spending time to disable unneeded resource usage programs would help too.

This is all perhaps moot if you can plug in your laptop though. +1 to the portable battery charger suggestion (better yet, try to borrow one if you don't need it all the time/ buy and return )

Also, are you using for the full 18 hours? For such flights, I usually just need to entertain myself 5-6 hours and conk out for the rest. More than enough via ipad and laptop battery life.

I'd suggest a Hootoo Tripmate Nano for your ipad, but I don't think using wifi is ok on a plane just yet...



But the following is an attempt for the dumbest suggestion in the thread:

http://9to5mac.com/2014/08/22/makesh...-iphone-video/

Might get around the small screen issue by keeping it closer to your face.

[Fuzz]

Alternative:

[TorqueDog]

Originally Posted by DoubleF

I'd suggest a Hootoo Tripmate Nano for your ipad, but I don't think using wifi is ok on a plane just yet...

There isn't any in-air WiFi on international flights just yet, so this is technically true of this particular trip.

[ken0042]

Originally Posted by DoubleF

Also, are you using for the full 18 hours? For such flights, I usually just need to entertain myself 5-6 hours and conk out for the rest. More than enough via ipad and laptop battery life.

Yeah, I'll be traveling with my wife and son, so I'm banking on needing it the full 18 hours; each way. I am the IT support for the household, so I want to have some options at my disposal. The last time I took this trip I had a similar midnight departure from Vancouver, I found it hard to sleep on the plane.

I mean really, I could bring the laptop and re-sync the iPad every few hours once I run out of material to watch. However it would also be nice to either pack the laptop away, or not even bring it along. Plus being geeky it's nice to have a sleek and shiny way to do something.

[DoubleF]

Originally Posted by ken0042

Yeah, I'll be traveling with my wife and son, so I'm banking on needing it the full 18 hours; each way. I am the IT support for the household, so I want to have some options at my disposal. The last time I took this trip I had a similar midnight departure from Vancouver, I found it hard to sleep on the plane.

I mean really, I could bring the laptop and re-sync the iPad every few hours once I run out of material to watch. However it would also be nice to either pack the laptop away, or not even bring it along. Plus being geeky it's nice to have a sleek and shiny way to do something.

http://www.cnet.com/how-to/how-to-ad...an-ios-device/

The Ravpower file hub they discuss is $45 on Amazon.ca.
The Hootoo nano I suggested (similar thing, no battery charging though) is $30.

But yeah... pretty sure you aren't allowed to turn on wifi in the plane to use these file hubs. Might still be a great item to grab for a future road trip though. Or at the very least, ask fam to stream the media off the file hub in the air port, then rely on the media on the ipad during flight?

[ken0042]

Yeah, I was leaning towards that Ravpower hub; which is why I had that in my OP. The reviews are all over the map, so I thought I'd see if somebody here had personal experience. The one thing is you can connect over cables, so bring that and a 128 GB thumb drive, and I'd be set.

[Wormius]

Whatever you do, make sure you do a dry run without internet access. It would certainly suck if something needed to connect via internet to function, and confirm that you can bring a big battery on the airplane.

Note, I was on some China Eastern flights with spotty seatback USB chargers.

[DoubleF]

Originally Posted by ken0042

Yeah, I was leaning towards that Ravpower hub; which is why I had that in my OP. The reviews are all over the map, so I thought I'd see if somebody here had personal experience. The one thing is you can connect over cables, so bring that and a 128 GB thumb drive, and I'd be set.

Wait, the Ravpower can connect via cables? I didn't see that spec. Yeah, that totally would answer your needs. That thing probably would be heavy as F for traveling though and I don't know what the restrictions on those battery packs are for flights (but I've seen transportation regulation warnings on some of those instruction manual pages).


There's this one as well, but at 32 GB only and $80, seems expensive. I'd also be worried about snapping the lightning cable attachment part with a stray hand or movement. But no wireless concerns. Maybe there's an equal product elsewhere.

https://www.amazon.ca/Lightning-Conn...ds=hootoo+nano

[chemgear]

Originally Posted by EldrickOnIce

+1 for transferring from one device to iPad. Watch, delete and transfer again.
I bought this 20000mAh portable charger from Amazon for $30. It is excellent. Outputs 2 amps. Would keep the iPad running the whole time, if necessary.
https://www.amazon.ca/gp/product/B00...?ie=UTF8&psc=1

I have that one, it's great for travel.

And it's the cheapest it's been for quite a while: http://ca.camelcamelcamel.com/20000m...uct/B00NFBQCPI

[FurnaceFace]

I have a ravpower. I like it. I have never tried using it on a plane and suspect you can't but I like it for non plane use.

I've primarily used it to backup photos from my cards to a USB key or backup drive. The thing I like about it is the iOS interface is just an interface. The files go direct from the card to the drive, there is no file transferred to the iOS device and down to your target. Transfer times are therefore quick.

I've served movies from it to my iPad and it works well.

I used it as a battery backup to power my phone for GPS purposes while travelling.

The interface is not awesome but works. It's finicky at times but you'll have no issue figuring it out. Like all iOS file management apps you have to select images/files and can't copy folders across. That's just a quirk of iOS though and something you're likely used to. You can "select all" though which is nice.

[ken0042]

Originally Posted by FurnaceFace

I have a ravpower. I like it. I have never tried using it on a plane and suspect you can't but I like it for non plane use.

Is there no way to disable the wifi and just use the cables?

[MrCallahan]

Originally Posted by EldrickOnIce

+1 for transferring from one device to iPad. Watch, delete and transfer again.
I bought this 20000mAh portable charger from Amazon for $30. It is excellent. Outputs 2 amps. Would keep the iPad running the whole time, if necessary.
https://www.amazon.ca/gp/product/B00...?ie=UTF8&psc=1

ohh, I like this! definitely going to pick this up!

[FurnaceFace]

Originally Posted by ken0042

Is there no way to disable the wifi and just use the cables?

The only way to access the Rav through a device is using wireless. Or the one I have works that way anyway.

The cables it comes with are for charging or hooking up to a storage device. Mine only has a mini USB for charging and a standard USB for using as a hub.

Edit: the Rav in your OP is the one I have. Attaching your iOS device doesn't allow you to treat the Rav with an SD card inserted in it as a visible drive you can access...maybe if it's jailbroken? The only way to shuttle files is via wifi.

I liken it to the lighting SD card reader. You can get photos and videos shot with your camera off it but if you toss a movie on your SD card, you can't get at it or maybe can't get at it easily. I'm guessing some DRM reason.

Edit2: good review. http://www.howtogeek.com/183621/htg-...nd-photo-dump/

[ken0042]

Yeah, it looks like I was reading the parts I wanted to; about file sharing and seeing a USB cable connected. I guess it's good I started this thread instead of just buying something off the bat.