Use Your USB Peripherals with Your iPad

ByMike Moffit

If you’ve owned a Mac for quite some time and invested in various peripherals over the years, but also own an iPad, I have a tip for you! There are a lot of iPad accessories, but you can’t always afford to purchase two products—one for your Mac and another for you iPhone—to perform the same task on both. Fortunately, many accessories like keyboards, speakers, and headphones are available in Bluetooth wireless models, plus many printers and scanners have WiFi options. Using peripherals like these that are designed for Mac and iOS devices has significant advantages, but often requires purchasing a new peripheral, which is not always in the budget.

Often upgrading to a newer WiFi or Bluetooth peripheral is still the best decision and will be more compatible in the long run, but what if you have invested in USB peripherals? If you have a trusted USB keyboard (for some of us, they become an old friend), USB memory card readers, expensive USB audio equipment like microphones, mixers, or MIDI devices, there is a way! Additionally, if you need to connect your iPad to a wired ethernet network, what I’m about to reveal will do the trick too. Let me introduce you to Apple’s Lightning to USB adapters:

While originally designed for importing photos and videos from digital cameras via USB, they do support other standard types of USB peripherals, including keyboards, barcode scanners, memory card readers, and various audio devices.

The original Lightning-to-USB adapter is just that: a simple dongle you plug into your iPad’s Lightning port and into which you can plug a USB cable. The newer Lightning to USB 3.0 adapter has a USB port which supports faster speeds and more power for the iPad Pros (while still supporting all other iPads with Lightning ports), but also has a pass-through Lightning port for power so you can still charge your iPad while USB accessories are plugged in.

Note: Sadly, this accessory is designed for the iPad-only and will not work on the iPhone.

There are some USB devices, especially audio devices like microphones and MIDI adapters which require more power than the iPad can provide from its internal battery, so you’ll get an error message saying the “attached accessory uses too much power”. With the older adapter, you have to plug in a powered USB hub to work around this issue, and your iPad still can’t be charged. The new adapter provides enough power to charge the iPad as well as power USB accessories that need more power (you can still use a USB hub too, if you need to connect multiple powered devices). So, if you need to run USB accessories that require more power or might want to charge your iPad while using USB peripherals, go with the newer USB 3.0 adapter.

Using one of these Lightning to USB adapters can allow you to keep using your existing peripherals on your iPad, or invest in more expensive peripherals that will work on both your iPad and Mac. For those who want to get more functionality out of their iPad, this is a really easy way to do it. There are many musicians and podcasters who are able to carry a complete recording studio powered by just their iPad. Photographers and other professionals are finding themselves doing the same. This is yet another reminder that the iPad is a powerful and flexible mobile device, so hopefully this tip helps you get more out of yours and your peripherals!

Similar Posts

  • I hope you have an awesome Memorial Day weekend. Grace and I will be heading to Maine on the motorcycles to eat some crustaceans. Not the fake lobsters from Key West, these Maine lobsters are the real thing, not just overgrown crawdads. We will be riding along the coast and then heading back to Vermont on Memorial day in time to rest while we watch a few parades along the way.

    Thank you for reading this issue of Kibbles & Bytes and enjoy the long weekend!

    Your Kibbles & Bytes Team,

    Don, Emily, Hadley & Amy

  • Should You Update?

    Over the past week or two, Apple has released updates for El Capitan, iOS 9, TV OS and Watch OS. The question that everyone always asks when these updates appear on their devices is “Do I really have to do this?” The answer to this in many instances in YES

    The nature of the updates that have come out most recently are what we call minor updates. They are simply revisions and repairs to the current version already running on your device. How do we know that? The third number is the only part that has changed. OS X El Capitan updated from 10.11.4 to 10.11.5, iOS 9.3.1 went to iOS 9.3.2 and so fourth. These kinds of updates are critical updates to run on your devices because they most often fix security concerns and provide bug fixes. When these updates come out it’s admittedly not always at the most convenient time for a user, so one great feature with most of the updates is that you can schedule for them to happen when your work flow will not be interrupted. You can easily set your computer, iPhone or iPad to run these updates in the middle of the night when your not using the device. It should be noted that for these settings to work in most cases you do need to have the device plugged into power.

    We always stress the importance of ensuring you have backed up your data before performing any kind of update to your software, but what many of us might not think about is compatibility within Apple installed software. Recently I performed the above updates on my iPhone and other iOS devices as well as my home computer. I rely heavily on iCloud and syncing of information and files so that no matter what computer or device I am on and I have access to much of my basic information, including my notes. I utilize the notes program for a lot of things, from basic grocery notes to meeting notes. Most notes I only need to keep for a short period of time and delete often, but in recent weeks I discovered that several of my notes had either disappeared altogether or were not updating to my MacBook Air. I verified that iCloud had copies of all the notes on my phone, I could make a new note in the cloud and it would show up on my phone, I could log onto my home computer and find my notes but nothing was updating to my MacBook Air. I deleted my iCloud and re-added it to my machine, turned notes on and all on my iPhone and nothing worked.

    Upon digging through several pages of support information and lots of frustration I discovered a critical error made on my part (one that I warn customers about all the time). I failed to pay attention to the little warnings as I hastily clicked through updates. One of the updates was specifically for notes and I paid absolutely no attention to the fact that there was a little warning box that said El Capitan would be required to view the notes upon completion of this upgrade. So now, until I get around to updating my MacBook Air, I’ll have to remember to either grab my phone when I need to make a note or to log into my iCloud account directly. These kinds of updates mishaps are most common with third party applications, so I gave no thought to the idea that I could or would loose access to my notes. Lesson learned on my part.

  • _Dear Friends,_

    My house on Prickly Mountain is about 2-3 weeks behind the micro climate down here in the Mad River Valley. My apple trees are just now blooming while the big apple tree by my office window is well beyond blooming and is growing apples. In addition to the bees seeking nectar from the blossoms I noticed two hummingbirds feeding on my blueberry bushes as I sat on the deck last night after work.

    Only our South Burlington store will be open 9-5 on Memorial Day. We will resume all normal hours on Tuesday May 31st. Memorial Day is a somber holiday that honors those that have made the ultimate sacrifice for our freedom.

    “Better to die fighting for freedom then be a prisoner all the days of your life.” -Bob Marley

    Memorial Day is also the unofficial start of summer and it seems like the weather is cooperating this year. My annual motorcycle ride to Maine is always a bit iffy because of the weather but it looks like the lobsters better be on the lookout this year! Grace and I always catch a few small Memorial Day parades as we head through the back roads of New Hampshire on the way back to Vermont on Monday.

    This week’s Kibbles & Bytes exclusive features the Apple Airport Express Base Station. This Apple Certified refurbished unit carries the same 1-year warranty as new. Whether you need to extend your wireless network, connect a non-wireless printer to your network or connect your stereo system, the Airport Express is a handy device to have on hand. And in storm season, it never hurts to have a back-up wireless access point. Normally, these are $99 new but for “Kibbles & Bytes readers”:http://www.smalldog.com/wag900002244 this week, while supply lasts, you can get one for only “**$59!**”:http://www.smalldog.com/wag900002244