This $8 adapter is all it takes to make a USB stick helpful within the iPhone age

After I bought my

Samsung Galaxy S9
again in 2018, the cellphone got here with a free accent within the field: a Samsung-branded USB-A to USB-C On-The-Go (OTG) adapter. The corporate had solely not too long ago begun switching its cellular gadgets over from USB Micro-B to USB-Kind-C, and this adapter was a considerate inclusion to assist

smooth over the transition process
.

The included adapter’s assist for OTG was (and nonetheless is) necessary — as a USB specification, OTG permits the accent to facilitate communication between host and peripheral gadgets with none compatibility points. For essentially the most half, I did not make a lot use of my adapter again once I was rocking the S9 each day. This all modified not too long ago, once I was spring-cleaning and stumbled upon my previous assortment of 2012-era

USB flash drives
.

I made a decision it might be a enjoyable alternative to look again in any respect my digital recordsdata and paperwork from once I was a junior highschool and senior highschool pupil. For context, despite the fact that cloud storage options existed again then, it was commonplace to domestically retailer essays and slideshow shows on a USB stick, which is exactly how I operated on the time.

After all, tech has come a great distance for the reason that early 2010s, and none of my private gadgets embody a USB-A port anymore. That is the place my helpful USB OTG adapter is available in — with out a hitch, it lets me not solely entry my previous recordsdata on my trendy PC, but additionally on my USB-C-enabled

iPhone
and

Android tablet
. In different phrases, the identical USB stick that I beforehand plugged into the Home windows XP desktop tower at my old skool, can simply as simply be plugged into my state-of-the-art

iPhone 15 Pro
.

How do I join my previous USB flash drive to my cellular machine?

All it takes is a single, low-cost USA-A to USB-C adapter

Pocket-lint / Apple / Samsung

To attach an old-school USB flash drive to a contemporary cellular machine like an iPhone, an iPad, or an Android, observe these steps:

1. Guarantee that you’ve got entry to an OTG-certified USB-A to USB-C adapter, and that your cellular machine has at the very least one free USB-C port.
2. Plug the male finish of the USB stick into the feminine finish of the USB-A to USB-C adapter.
3. Subsequent, plug the male finish of the USB-A to USB-C adapter immediately into the USB-C port of your cellphone or pill.

When it comes to USB-A to USB-C adapters, there are many choices in the marketplace apart from the Samsung mannequin that I highlighted. I would keep away from springing for a no-name model — regardless of the compelling costs, you are playing by way of high quality. Many of those choices lack OTG assist, make the most of the gradual USB 2.0 switch velocity customary, and do not characteristic security options or correct energy supply controllers.

Some adapter fashions I would personally suggest embody:

Associated

4 lesser-known things I do with old USB drives

USB drives can achieve this far more than simply retailer PDFs and Phrase docs.

USB stick ubiquity is within the rear-view mirror

Nowadays, USB flash drives have kind of fallen into obscurity. Positive, there are nonetheless

plenty of potentially clever use cases
to your previous thumb drives, however as a major storage medium, their days are all however numbered. The sheer comfort of cloud-based storage options like Dropbox, OneDrive, Google Drive and iCloud have evidently taken the wind out of the standard USB stick’s sail. On the identical time, wi-fi switch protocols like AirDrop and Fast Share have decreased the necessity to depend on native storage for cross-device entry as a complete.

For longer-term local storage
, exterior onerous disk drives (HDDs) stay the most effective bang-for-your-buck, whereas flash-based

solid state drives
(SSDs) are extra sturdy, dependable, and capacity-dense than their USB stick counterparts. Nonetheless, I’ve a nostalgic attachment to the thumb drive period, and there is one thing about plugging my previous USB stick into my trendy smartphone that tickles my nerdy heartstrings.

Associated

Apple (sort of) sells a USB-A-to-C cable now, but there’s no fruit logo in sight

Apple-owned Beats has launched colourful new woven charging cables in a number of plug codecs.