what is one of the biggest pain points
of having an iPad the lack of
functionality and interfacing with
physical accessories like SD cards for
Content creators plugging into TVs or
hooking up an external hard drive while
there are plenty of docks and dongles
out there I've yet to find one as
beautifully designed seamless strong and
just functional as this new Hub the
Anker 551 Aiden one USBC Hub alright so
I'm testing out the HDMI port on the
anchor Dock and having iOS 16 beta
running on my iPad I get a cool glimpse
into what stage manager can actually be
capable of and it's just one more reason
why this dock can be actually useful for
those who even with a 12.9 inch iPad
could use some more screen real estate
because on the iPad it looks like you
can either use screen mirroring or if I
attach a external mouse and keyboard
I'll be able to to extend the desktop
and use it as a totally separate monitor
all right so obviously right now you can
see that it's just screen mirroring
because I don't have an external
keyboard or Mouse hooked up so let me
transfer my mouse and keyboard to the
iPad now let's see if we can extend the
desktop instead of just mirroring it so
we can see the Samsung TV I can hit
arrangement
and now I can turn off mirror display
it's set and now we have
two totally separate monitors
bring up YouTube turn on
you know stage manager
move to display oh
now I'm editing on there then I can have
separate things running on here still
who who doesn't watch want to watch them
Maddie it's such a simple but amazing
setup I've been talking trash about
stage manager because I didn't get it
but I get it now and the nice thing is
this is a universal dock you can put
anywhere from an iPad Mini all the way
up to a pro I mean it's theoretically
you could really throw any like
relatively thin tablet on here but it is
made for the iPad this nice braided
cable is how you actually connect the
dock portion to the iPad so you plug USB
C into the dock USBC into the iPad and
that's pretty much it and then in terms
of ports on the back you have a
pass-through charging you also have a
full HDMI cable back here you have two
USB type A ports you have a headphone
jack and then on this side of course you
have the USB type c to plug it into the
iPad and then a full-size SD card and a
Micro SD card slot now if I take one of
my SD cards here or say something like
this Samsung T5 with a USB type a cable
plug that in there
you will then see in my files here on
the left hand side both the EOS digital
and the a03 that's the T5 from my
Blackmagic all pop up and I can see
everything on here so there's actually
some files from a wedding that I shot
with a friend here so I can see and
preview all these files immediately I
don't have to wait for anything to load
because it has such good data rates and
see my osr here
can see various photos that I've taken
and then I can use those in all of my
favorite apps so I can open up Lightroom
for example and hit import from camera
device it's going to load up everything
on the EOS R and then once it's imported
just like any other computer I can go in
and just start
working with these files however I'd
want to if you're not into photography
you can open up places like lumafusion
and I can go over to my imported
can import media files app and check out
all these uh
wedding footage that I wanted pick
everything that I want to select hit
open and then almost instantly all that
footage is right here that I can go
through scrub through and add into my
timeline and edit Whatever video I
wanted now I've had this iPad Pro for I
think a year and a half now or something
like that and I got the Apple magic
keyboard alongside of it which is a
really nice keyboard it's obviously
extremely expensive but you know it's
got the SMART connector so you can kind
of just magnetize it on and it
automatically works but one you're not
adding any sort of functionality with
port and then in terms of viewable
angles straight on to this and I take a
lot of Zoom calls and let me tell you
this is not the most flattering angles
of them all all right and here's what
video looks like from the iPad on the
magic keyboard most people aren't a fan
of the kind of shooting under the chin
if I take the same exact iPad and put it
on the anchor Mount over here and see
that we're already better it's a lot
less under the chin now we essentially
have this beautiful straight on look and
this is way more personal and basically
eye level with the camera itself so
that's a huge bonus in my book
considering it's a dock this is
extremely travel friendly for what it
accomplishes it's uh true I I actually
did legit pack this and use it
throughout my Vancouver trip last week
10 out of 10 travel approved in terms of
materials it's pretty much solid metal
minus a rubber bottom and a rubber pad
on here which does curve all the way to
the front lip so that when the iPad is
resting on it no metal is touching the
actual iPad it's also got a decent
amount of weight to it and so that way
it's going to keep even the largest iPad
ads will balance now let's talk about
the tension Behind These Arms right here
it is very stiff but it is very smooth
now one could argue that it's a little
too stiff but personally I'd much rather
have it be a little too stiff than a
little too loose you're going to want to
put one hand on the bottom and kind of
adjust it to where you want but where
you adjust it to exactly it will stay as
soon as I add in my large iPad here if I
want it to be right at that angle it's
not moving I can fully grab my pen here
start doodling do everything the wobble
is very minimal if I want it all the way
down here but still hovering off the
ground you can see putting full pressure
drawing doodling all that good stuff
totally fine so in terms of how I use
the dock on my desk I usually keep it on
top of one of the speakers just because
it fits kind of nicely there it all have
different notes for videos whether
that's b-roll shots that I need to get
or just orders of things or maybe video
scripts that I've written out and
because I have all my other monitors
filled with tools and viewers and stuff
it's nice to have kind of a separate
device that I can easily grab if I need
to to interact with or just kind of put
up on the stand there being Universal I
love the fact that I can just easily go
from vertical to horizontal if I just
want to throw up like a show on here to
watch while I'm working one of my
favorite use cases for it is when I get
into thumbnail work and I actually bring
the whole dock down I kind of push my
keyboard beneath this bottom monitor
here and just have the iPad right here
and I open up photoshop on the computer
and then I actually mirror my iPad to
that so I can use the apple pencil full
in Photoshop on my Mac if that makes
sense so yeah I'd love to know what you
guys would use this DOC for down in the
comments below let me know huge thanks
to anchor for helping elevate my entire
iPad setup and it really kind of makes
me fall back in love with using my iPad
again thanks so much guys see you in the
next one