Back on December 19 of last year I was lamenting the changes in iPad iOS 4.2 that lowered the power to the power to the iPad 30-pin connector resulting in an inability to download CF cards to the iPad through a card reader. The reduction in power from 100 mA to 20 mA meant that the iPad no longer provided sufficient power to read a CF card through a USB card reader and iPad Camera Connection Kit combo. The only solution was to connect the camera to the iPad and use the power of the camera to download the photos – but then you couldn't use the camera until the download had completed.
Roll forward to last week and my trip to Miami and Key West. Just prior to going I upgraded my iPad v1 to iOS 4.3 (8F190) from iOS 4.2.1 (8C148). I snapped in a CF card reader and lo and behold, I was able to read CF cards to my iPad v1 without using the camera. Armed with this fantastic result, I left my trusty Epson P-5000 at home and just took the iPad v1 for on-location backups.
I had a wonderful time in Miami and Key West, made all the better by my being able to simply read my CF cards to the iPad without tying up my camera in the process.
On March 17 I had tweeted about my success in reading CF cards to my iPad v1. On return home I found a comment on my December 19 post from a reader querying my tweet in light of a conversation on the Apple website about the Card Reader problem not having been resolved in iOS 4.3.[ad name=”post”]
That aroused my curiosity so I decided to do a test of my various card readers. I'm somewhat embarrassed by the quality of the photos below (I might retake and update or replace with a video if I have time), but they do illustrate that with a particular CF card reader available here, one can download images direct from a CF card to the iPad v1, not only on iOS 4.3 (8F190) but also on iOS 4.2.1 (8C148)
Below is a part of my collection of CF card readers. All but one were too power hungry to work with the iPad v1 and Camera Connection Kit.
The next shows my iPad iOS 4.3 version.
Now the Apple version of the ‘Fail Whale' when the CF card reader draws more than 20 mA.
But wait, what's this I see with a different CF card reader attached – my photos are downloading!
And here's an iPad v1 running iOS 4.2.1 (8C148)
And here's that same CF card reader being used to download images onto the iOS 4.2.1 (8C148) versioned iPad v1.
So, what I learned from this is that you need to find the right CF card reader if you want to load your images directly from a CF card to your iPad v1, running either iOS 4.2.1 or iOS 4.3.
Again, the card reader I'm having success with can be purchased here.
