I have connected my iPad to my Apple USB keyboard using the Camera Connection Kit. Sometimes it works, sometimes not. Why do I have this issue? Is there a fix?
iMac, MacBook, iPad, Time Capsule, iPod Touch,
Mac OS X (10.6.5),
VM Fusion, Win 7, Win XP, Ubuntu
The Camera Connection Kit has only been sold as a resource for interfacing with cameras. There have been several apocryphal examples of it working with other hardware, such as certain flash drives. But there is no guarantee of that usage.
If it works with the keyboard, fine. If not, there is not much you can do beyond give Apple feedback of an enhancement you would like to see:
The CCK worked widely with external USB keyboards - it was commonly used this way. However since their iOS upgrade to 4.x, I have been unable to make it work with my AlphaSmart Dana keyboard. This was a critical part of my travel workflow, and I am sorry to see this lost.
From other discussion on this forum, the current limit for the CCK was lowered from 100 ma to 20 ma. Thus, many devices that worked before do not work and you get a too much power dialogue box instead.
Yes, I have just read the same thing, with a lot of people saying their card reader no longer works. And someone suggested that the allowable USB current had been lowered in the new OS version below what the cards draw, as you have pointed out quantitatively. Thanks.
Anyway I just took a compact Belkin non-powered hub that I usually travel with, and plugged (using the attached male USB A plug) it into the CCK in the iPad. Plugged the keyboard into the hub. And into another output of the hub I plugged a USB power supply I usually travel with, too - the 10W Apple iPad supply! I figured signals be damned, the power supply lines are going to be simply bussed together, and they were.
So now my keyboard works, just as it used to. I guess it's true that the USB max current draw from the iPad has indeed been lowered in software. And I'll bet that this will cure the problem of all the people who find that the CCK no longer reads their camera cards.
Only hitch is that most people will not have a USB A-A cable. I have one of the Radio Shack retractable USB cables with the modular ends, and one of the configurations is A to A. I use this so it's in my travel bag, too - its leads are good enough to power my external USB drive I use for backup.
So the keyboard problem is solved for me, and I bet this will work for the non-reading camera cards, too.
...This was a critical part of my travel workflow...Comment, anyone?
Get a Bluetooth keyboard? It is officially supported, especially if you use a current Apple Bluetooth keyboard, so future iOS updates will not break this functionality (until Apple says so. 😉 ) Or the iPad Keyboard dock, although I'm assuming you don't want to take that traveling.
