The Apple iPhone is a very popular device indeed and has played an integral part in the explosion of the Smart Phone and Tablet market over the last 9 years since its launch.
Apple have however played it safe with regard to storage though, happy to keep the iPhone, iPad and iPod firmly enclosed in milled aluminium with internal access to only the SIM card. Hard wiring (or soldering) components into a device means the manufacturer doesn’t need to includ memory and battery adapters which take up space and more importantly depth in the phone. Consequently Apple devices are therefore nice and thin.
Disallowing additional memory means users have to closely monitor their phone storage. It doesn’t take long for those high bitrate 4K videos to start eating into an iPhone internal storage, meaning you need to start archiving videos and photos to another device such as a Mac or PC (or cloud storage if you have the time and data bandwidth) to stop the memory being used up. Worse still, If you are out and about and run out of phone storage, you are going to be looking at dumping what might be precious footage stored on your phone to make space for new photos and videos.
This is where Transcend step in with their JetDrive Go 500G Lightning / USB 3.1 Flash Drive, a very nifty device (or dongle) that plugs directly into your iPhone or iPad’s ‘Lightning’ port and allows you to copy or move your photos and videos straight off your device onto a flash drive and thus free’s up your phone for more film making and photography. You can even take photos directly onto the flash drive if you wish using the Transcend Go App which is automatically downloaded when you first plug the device into your phone or tablet.
The jetDrive Go 500G is different from standard flash drives in as much as it both Lightning and USB on the same device which a connector mounted at end. The lightning ‘end’ plugs directly into your iPhone or iPad and allows you to copy data at speed of up to 20MB/s onto the drive. At the other end of the flash drive is a USB 3.1 connector (recognisable by its blue colour) which connects directly into a PC or Mac and copies data up to an amazing 130MB/s, so again no delays in copying your video and photos over to your desktop or laptop.
The drive comes in two sizes, 32Gb and 64Gb and in either Silver or Gold zinc alloy. These two storage options are going to be a dream come true for those of us with smaller internal storage options and may even delay that dreaded phone upgrade.
Package wise, the flash drive comes in a simple package along with clear instructions, a wrist strap and two plastic caps for either end of the device to protect the connectors. From opening the package, plugging in the device to downloading and running the small “Go” App, I was up and running in literally two minutes.
The device worked flawlessly for me and it wasn’t long before I was zooming around the house, backing up the kids iPads and my wife’s iPhone, it really was very easy to use.
I was certainly surprised how something that could be considered fairly insignificant to look at could actually be a bit of a godsend for the iPhone community. This is an excellent Apple MFi certified product and comes highly recommended from us.
Priced at £50 for the 32gb model and £67 for the 64gb, you can purchase directly from Amazon using the link alongside this text. Other options are available from other manufacturers and outlets, take care to ensure plugin peripherals are certified before using them.
Most of us use our smartphones to take pictures instead of carrying around a camera. Miggo have spent over a year researching and developing Pictar – an iPhone grip enclosure that brings the control of a DSLR right to your fingertips. With features that marry a traditional DSLR with your iPhone, Pictar gives you the ability to take your iPhone photography to the next level.
Designed to replicate the familiar feeling of holding a camera, you can comfortably use Pictar to take photos with one hand without worrying about dropping your phone whilst taking a photo. It is coated with anti-slip material, and can be connected to either a wrist strap or neck strap. The Pictar has been designed to fit most existing models of the iPhone, and the expanding design means it should fit future models too.
Digital Radio is now firmly established in our lives with more and more stations switching to DAB and the hardware finding itself in our homes and more importantly in our vehicles, the choice of stations is now bigger than it’s ever been. The move to DAB has been much slower than the recent transition to Digital TV and the consequent switch off of analogue services, mainly due to the availability, simplicity of installation and pricing of Digital TV boxes, something that is not quite so practical with radio.
The Model 3 can according to Elon Musk, seat 5 adults comfortably, even on a smaller vehicle footprint. Tesla does this by moving the driving position forward into the space that would contain an engine if this was a traditional petrol or diesel car. It retains the centre console screen that graces the Model S and Model X, but is now a 15 inch landscape arrangement rather than the giant 17 inch portrait version. Inside the car, it retains the quality of the other Tesla models, but is significantly more sparse, perhaps similar to the BMW i3 which sacrifices refinement for space. As before, the car includes trunk and frunk (frunk trunk), for British readers, the bonnet area can be used for luggage as can the boot space.