Leaving home without your smartphone’s charging cable is as disastrous as forgetting the device itself. That’s why ultra-compact charging cables are suddenly so popular, and with 128GB of extra storage onboard, PhotoFast’s new MemoriesCable might be the only one iPhone users will want to consider.
The iPhone and iPad are notorious for their lack of expandable storage; there’s no microSD card slot, and no support for USB OTG allowing you to natively access media from a connected flash drive. But recent versions of iOS do allow third party apps to read and write media to portable drives connected to either device’s Lightning port, which is how PhotoFast’s new MemoriesCable can give your iPad or iPhone an extra 128GB of capacity.
The one big catch is that you have to rely on the aforementioned third-party app to watch movies, listen to music or backup photos. And while PhotoFast offers that requisite app as a free download, it might not be quite as polished as the rest of iOS. But if you can live with a few UI quirks, the occasional random crash, and listening to music outside of iTunes, the MemoriesCable seems like a great choice because it also doubles as an emergency charging and sync cable.
You can use the MemoriesCable just like the USB cable that came with your iPhone or iPad, except that it’s only five inches long, which might mean a few limitations of where you can plug in. But when your phone is down to five per cent battery, any source of power, no matter how inconvenient, is a lifesaver. Pricing details haven’t been revealed just yet, but the PhotoFast MemoriesCable will also be available in a cheaper 64GB version, in addition to the 128GB option.