Apple is famous for many things. They are famous for making the iPhone and iPad, they are famous for their never ending stream of patents for things that already exist and last but not least they are famous for making sure that you cannot use their mobile products without their approval. You see if you buy an iDevice your core file system is pretty much locked down. Now there are ways to get into the file system and move things around, but it can get messy and things do not always make the transition intact. The other side of this is that there is no way to add more storage to any of their products. It is not like an Android or Windows based tablet with an SD card slot or USB ports. So what can you do if you bought one of the 16GB non-3G iPads or if you only own the iPad touch? Kingston has an answer for you. Kingston has put their expertise in making flash drives to good use and attached a flash drive to a wireless controller that can also act as a wireless bridge. They are calling it the Wi-Drive and when you pair this up with the WiDrive app from the AppStore you might just have a relatively low cost answer to a lot of people’s needs. So follow along as we take a look at the $180 32GB Wi-Drive on a first generation iPad.
Wi-Drive App -In order to use the Wi-Drive you will have to grab an App from the Apple App Store. The Wi-Drive App is free, but is required to use the features of the Wi-Drive (and is also means that you cannot use it with any other devices). Before you head off and download the Wi-Drive App you will want to make sure that your Wi-Drive is fully charged. You can do this using a PC or a Mac by connecting them to an available USB port.
When you do this you will see two drives that show up; one shows as a CD-ROM while the other shows as a writable drive. The CD-ROM portion contains Apache web server files along with other software needed to run the drive. The other drive is where you store all of your files. You can put your media files into folders or leave them loose in the root of the drive (I would recommend putting them in folders).
Once you get the App installed you have to connect your iDevice to the Wi-Drive wireless connection. To do this power on the Wi-Drive and wait until the wireless LED starts blinking (consistently as this indicates it is ready for a connection). Go to the settings page on your iDevice and look for a wireless connection called WiDrive. Once you see the check mark you can open the Wi-Drive application and start configuring things. Once you get connected you have a few options, to start off the WiDrive connection is not secured at all. To prevent someone from reading your files and you can setup protection on the wireless all the way up to WPA2 Personal. You can also change the channel from auto to a channel of your choosing (although it is recommended that you keep it set to auto). To get back out to the internet you will need to use the Wi-Drive App to connect the Wi-Drive to your wireless connection (or the one wherever you are).
After you are all connected then you can finally start streaming your movies, music, photos and other items.
