The longer that you own a smart device, the quicker it always seems to fill up. Apps get larger, bloat builds up and suddenly a storage warning is popping up on your screen, advising that you can’t upgrade to the latest operating system. You have two options when this happens: start organising everything (ie going through and deleting your photos), or just add extra storage in the form of a nifty accessory such as the Leef iBridge.
The iBridge is an interesting little product, designed to curve around the back of your iOS device while plugged into the Lightning port, giving you an extra boost in accessible storage (32GB here) while being fairly discreet in the process. It requires an extra app to use, though, and won’t just be added on to the standard onboard storage - there’s no real feature in iOS to handle this anyway.
Through the app, you can transfer photos to and from the storage, and even take photos using a special camera feature in the app. This camera functionality isn’t as good as some of the crazy stuff you can get on the App Store elsewhere (we’re looking at you, Line, you wonderful thing), but you can share from there to Twitter or other social media accounts. You cannot select images from the storage in these social media apps though, which would have been a nice touch.
It is very much a one-way thing - transferring is controlled from the storage app and there’s no way to access it from any other part of iOS. Either way, you can add music and a wide range of videos to the storage and watch them via the app, which can be a lot easier and faster thanks to its ability to just plug into your computer via any standard USB port. You can just load them on before you leave the house, and maybe grab the pictures off there while the transfer is happening.
It adds extreme convenience to your iOS device, working around iOS to give you a couple more features, while adding extra storage in the process.
Compatibility
iPhone 5+ • iPad 4th gen+ • iPad mini • iPod touch 5th gen+
Verdict
A great little piece of storage that not only extends the storage of your iOS device, but also adds some extra functionality that isn’t too out the way.