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I wish I'd found this iPhone accessory years ago

This small, cheap accessory means I'm no longer frustrated with the iPhone I bought.
Written by Adrian Kingsley-Hughes, Contributing Writer

One of the great things about owning an iPhone is that there's just no end to the accessories available for it. Now, while I'm the first to admit that many are junk, some are so good and useful that they transform the way I use my iPhone.

Despite buying an iPhone 11 Pro Max, I still cheaped out when it came to storage and bought the 64GB model.

This is how I roll.

I may be happy to pay over the odds for a phone, but I can't bring myself to pay over the odds for storage, and most of the time I get away with it because I make do with cloud storage a lot.

But, lately, I've started taking more photos and videos. A lot more. And to make things worse, I've begun experimenting with 4K video, and let me tell you, that stuff burns through storage.

There are a lot of external drives out there for iPhones, but I've found that it's hard to get one that will fit into the Lightning port if you have anything but the thinnest case. Many are also fragile, and I've had a few break apart in use.

Not the kind of backup storage I'm looking for if I'm being honest.

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RAVPower iPhone Flash Drive

Then I came across the RAVPower iPhone Flash Drive. Coming in 64GB and 128GB capacities, this MFi Certified USB 3.0 flash drive allows you to access the data on the drive and charge your iPhone simultaneously.

Basically, it's a Lightning connector joined to a USB-C connector using a thin, flexible ribbon cable. The Lightning connector is a very compact design, and that means I can still use the flash drive when my iPhone is in a bulky case.

The two ends are held together using a magnet. It's a small, compact, and very neat design.

The data transfer on the iPhone is handled by a free iOS app called iPlugmate, which while being somewhat basic, gets the job done acceptably.

The only downside for me is that I use a Mac that only has USB-C ports, so I need a dongle or dock to be able to transfer files from the drive, but this is only a small negative because so many of my other devices also need a dongle or dock.

This is now a part of my everyday carry, and it means I have tons of free space on my iPhone for shooting video.

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