Apple’s Latest iPad Pro is Not Compatible with Any USB External Hard Drives

Apple’s new iPad Pro will be going on sale and beginning to ship to customers who pre-ordered this Wednesday. A number of reviews were published today, with several publications having the device for a few days already.

Most publications praised the iPad for its design and performance improvements. However, there is one particular feature that may not be as good as customers hoped: the USB-C port. Nilay Patel from The Verge noted that the new USB-C port will not work with any external hard drive or printers.

“I tried a handful of USB-C hubs with an assortment of USB-A, HDMI, card readers, and Ethernet ports, and everything worked as intended… other stuff didn’t work, though: printers didn’t do anything.

But one extremely important category of devices will definitely not work: iOS does not support external storage. You can plug as many flash drives or hard drives as you want into the iPad Pro’s USB-C port, and nothing will happen. Apple says third parties can write apps to talk to external storage, but out of the box, this $1899 tablet simply won’t talk to a flash drive.”

Patel noted that the USB-C port does work with accessories like SD card readers, Ethernet ports, and HDMI for external display.

What do you think of the USB-C restrictions on the new iPad? Will it influence your buying decision? Let us know in the comments below!

[via Business Insider]

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