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Apple’s First SuperSpeed USB Lightning Accessory: The Lightning to SD Card Camera Reader

The Apple iPad Pro is the first iPad to support USB 3.1 Gen 1 (5 Gb/s) speeds, bringing it up to par with the Microsoft Surface Pro 4. However, unlike the Surface -- which uses a standard USB Type-A connector, the iPad Pro uses Apple's Lightning connector. However, the Apple iPad Pro's Lightning connector limits what type of devices can attach to the iPad which take advantage of this higher USB 3.1 speed. This limitation means that right now, even if you connect a iPad Pro to any newer MacBook, you will still be connecting only at USB 2.0 (480 Mb/s) speeds.

The first Apple accessory to support USB 3.1 Gen 1 (5 Gb/s) speeds is the Lightning to SD Card Camera Reader. You can use this card reader to quickly download your videos and photos taken from a camera or camcorder to the iPad Pro.

Note that if you use this card reader on other iPhones and iPads, you will only get USB 2.0 (480 Mb/s) speeds.

I purchased this card reader at the Apple Store in Apple's headquarters in Cupertino, California, where there was some confusion about what USB and SD card speeds the card reader actually supported.

The Lightning to SD Card Reader supports only standard sized SD cards, so you will need to use an adapter for smaller SD card sizes.

Unfortunately, the Lightning to SD Card Camera Reader does not support the latest SD Cards supporting UHS-II speeds.  According to Apple Support it only supports UHS-I speeds.