Originally Posted by JulesandSand:
“Hmmm - just seen review of the forthcoming Samsung Galaxy 10.1 - looks good.
Also rumours of iPad 3 THIS YEAR!
Another question,
With the USB/SD adapter attached to the iPad, would it play movies directly from a pen drive or SD card?”
“Hmmm - just seen review of the forthcoming Samsung Galaxy 10.1 - looks good.
Also rumours of iPad 3 THIS YEAR!

Another question,
With the USB/SD adapter attached to the iPad, would it play movies directly from a pen drive or SD card?”
TBH the Samsung hardware does look good - their re-visit to the drawing board seems to have paid off.
Not convinced about iPad 3 this year - seems too close to iPad 2 which was a fairly major bump up from the original iPad.
The USB/SD card adaptor is there purely to get photos onto the iPad - I've not tried it with video, but I'm almost sure it won't work. And you certainly can't stream from attached storage.
For example, when you slot in an SD[HC] card, the photos app pops open, the card is read (takes time if you have lots of pics), the thumbnails are presented, then you can touch or swipe along the photos you want. It works very much like iPhoto on the Mac.
Photos are then available to any app that has access to the Photos repository. There is no file system on the iPad to speak of, which leads to the next problem - how to get stuff off the iPad. Answer: not easily.
You can email photos, or you can use Dropbox - some apps work alongside Dropbox, such as Goodreader, where you can pop stuff in and out of Dropbox folders. There's always iTunes Sync if the app allows it, but frankly it's a bit of a faff.
Bottom line: there is no file system. Get used to it.
Personally, speaking as a gadget geek, this is simultaneously iPads greatest strength and weakness.
For power users like me who actually use their pad for content creation, it's a monumental PITA.
For casual, non technical users, it's a godsend - it removes a layer of potential confusion and protects them from themselves.
Getting back to your usage example, I would look at the Android alternatives - iPad just isn't the tablet for offline storage of photos or videos or mostly any files.



