How to Transfer app drawings and documents from Ipad to Istick

This may not seem like being Silhouette Cameo related, but I want to write a step by step here that might help others to transfer files made in apps on your Ipad to a Mobi/Sanho Istick device which has a lightening connector to your Iphone or Ipad at one end and a USB connector at the other end.

I use  a wonderful app called Idraw to design on my Ipad and I cannot rave about it enough. It is SUCH fun to use and I make many designs (svg, png etc) for use with my Silhouette Cameo. My recent problem is I want to access these designs on a public computer in a community laser lab.

My options without the Istick were:

1. Store the files in Icloud or Dropbox, or even email them to myself, however I am not going to use my passwords on a public computer that could have keyword logging software, or from which I may forget to properly log out on my departure from the workshop. 
2. Save designs to Dropbox, open them on my home computer, save them to a USB and take that to the workshop. However if I designed on my Ipad at the workshop I had to use option 1, which I really disliked as out lined above.

So, when I heard about the Mobi Istick it seemed the perfect way to save the files from my Ipad, onto the stick and then connect with the USB part to the public computer.

There is a good review here from Walt Mossberg on the Istick, and unfortunately until I got the Istick to try out, I didn't fully appreciate what he meant by the following. I do now! Watch the video by the way.

"The cumbersome part comes in when you want to use a file transferred to the iStick local storage area with another app on your iOS device, and it’s due to the way iOS manages files, not an issue with the iStick itself. Unlike on a computer, iOS devices don’t have a visible, system-wide file system. Instead, files that can be used by an app can only be fully used, beyond just viewing them, via that app.

Apple gets around this using a function called “Open in…,” which offers a list of compatible apps when you press an icon in an open file. So, for instance, in my tests, I was only able to edit a Word document transferred from the iStick by pressing an iOS sharing icon at the upper right and then moving it to Word for iPad or another word processor, like Apple’s Pages."

To transfer a drawing made in Idraw to Istick

So once you have bought your Istick and installed the free App for Istick that you will find in the App Store, pop the Istick into the connector on your Ipad. Open Idraw. Click on the send icon top RHS of your screen. Select "Send to app". Select the Idraw file you want to send (NB best to have it descriptively named before you send it). Click "share". Select format, size, background on/off etc. Click send. Open in Istick. Click on the open picture and hit "done". Please not you are not done, you are now half way there!

In the Istick app, click on the Ipad icon and you will now see your file in a local folder there. Mine always seem to be in "Other" folder. Edit, select files, then either select the "move" or "copy" to Istick icon at the bottom. Go back to the Istick/Mobi app screen and click on Istick. You should now see the file/s on your stick. Detach from Ipad and attach to a computer to access the files. That's it.

Like Walt Mossberg, I have also saved text files written in Office Suite Pro app in a similar manner. I don't think drawings made in other apps will necessarily have the same functionality of being able to be saved to the Istick. For example I can only send Inkbot app files via email or to Dropbox. 

I can however open an svg file in Dropbox, click "send" icon, open in app, select Istick and so on as described above.....

I hope this helps others :)