One of the major and interesting design changes Apple made to its new iPad Pro was giving it a USB-C connector instead of its proprietary Lightning port. This opened up the possibilities as to what the tablet could do, such as connect to cameras, external displays, and so on. For those who are planning on turning their iPad Pro into a computer of sorts, then Satechi might have something for you.
The company has recently unveiled a USB-C hub designed for the iPad Pro, which as its name suggests is a hub that attaches to the USB-C port on the tablet. From there it will offer multiple ports that users can attach other accessories and peripherals to. This includes a HDMI port, a USB-C port for charging, a USB 3.0 port (for connecting certain devices that use USB-A), and a headphone jack port which Apple removed in their latest iPad refreshes.
Now the image above shows how you can attach a flash drive to the USB-C hub via the USB 3.0 port, suggesting that you could use external storage with the tablet. Now we haven’t tested this out ourselves but it should be noted that in The Verge’s review of the iPad Pro, they found that plugging in external drives doesn’t seem to do anything.
Instead if you’re looking to transfer files, such as photos, you would either have to plug a camera directly to the tablet, or an SD card reader to the tablet and then it will open the Photos app to begin the transfer progress. Note that this seems to be a limitation of iOS and not so much with Satechi, but we thought we should mention it in case you were thinking about using external storage with the tablet. Satechi’s USB-C hub for the iPad Pro is priced at $45 and is available via the company’s website.