Corruption… that’s all we need

Before I start this post… I have to say I’m on my Bluetooth keyboard and mouse, as I am currently at work.

I received the Apple Lightning to USB3 Camera Adapter yesterday in the mail. Testing it today at work, it’s a little funky. 

(Photos taken on iPhone 11, name added via editing mode). 

First thing that happened when I put the lightning end into the phone (with USB stick in the adapter end, along with a power source… you must use a power source with this), I received a message to update the firmware within Apple. It was the Apple pop up message, not a “gentle warming” (warning) message that you get with some of the third party (foreign / loosely translated text) adapters. This seemed like a legit Apple pop up. 

I updated the adapter file because I don’t think you can go further unless you agree / confirm its use. It seems like it needs to do it’s thing in order to install the necessary operating files that the Apple’s stock “Files” app needs, in order read whatever you are hooking up to the phone. In my case, the thumb drive shows up as “NO NAME” with a drop down menu to see what’s on the drive. 

You must have Files app installed on the phone to do any transferring. 

Second thing that happened, once everything was properly installed, was the fact I could see everything I’ve saved to my thumb drive and was able to read it. We are talking PowerPoint presentations, PDF files, but as there are no image files on my drive, I can’t attest to those showing up. I’m sure they do. 

Maneuvering things around to be able to send a file to someone is pretty easy. It’s quite the same steps as what you would normally do to share or save files on the phone and spider out to whatever the need is.

The challenge becomes taking that thumb drive and using it in a computer. 

Which brings me to the third thing that happened.

Every time you use the drive with the adapter, a cache system gets put on the drive. Folders get created because whatever the original update to the phone was, it creates a temporary file so that you’re able to use / see the files everywhere. 

Which then becomes problematic if you’re not careful.

If you don’t wait until things copy or save on the thumb drive via the adapter, it creates a disk error on the computer. You have to give it at least a minute after you are done, in order to “eject” the drive and adapter from your phone. As there is no “eject device” option, this is why waiting a minute is important. 

Plugging the thumb drive for the first time into a computer (after saving a file on the phone), I got the “There is a problem with the drive. Scan now to repair” message. 

First time I didn’t scan the drive because I just wanted to open a file and print it. But… opening the PDF on the computer, created half a dozen error messages on the screen. Literally, pop up after pop up. All saying the file is corrupted. It wasn’t a virus pop up - trust me; I know what those look like. I’ve dealt with enough “file corrupt” messages to know something is fruity with how it was created or saved. 

So… eject media. 

Plug back in. 

Repair drive. 

Try again.

All but one file repaired itself, so I ended up having to go back to my phone and resave the file to the drive, plug it into the computer, et voilà! File fixed, printed.

Now I need to check another laptop to make sure a PowerPoint presentation saved correctly on it. Otherwise I need to resave the presentation from the work computer and re-transfer it. 

It really is a matter of watching what you are doing and being careful because not following directions and just jumping into it, can cause a little more stress and damage than you think. 

Had I not seen a lot of the messages before or just ignored it all, I wouldn’t be able to use anything I attach to my phone. I think it is a matter of taking your time on it and go “through the motions” of following directions because I want to be able to save files quickly to my thumb drive, transfer it to my phone and be able to text it to someone. 

If the future of technology is that we don’t have clunky desktop computers anymore, then we have to know how to adapt to smaller items. Especially when you have two environments that don’t usually like to talk to each other. Trying to find that happy medium to make things work, is key. 

I’m going to need to continue to play with this adapter and see if any other trouble happens… not that I want it, because the adapter isn’t cheap. But if I get another failure / repair / etc. option, I want to be prepared. 

I’ll update this topic when I can, with subsequent posts.

Until then, happy saving!

Cheers;