Leef iBridge review: Easy to use, good space solution for iPhone users

For anyone who has bought an Apple iPhone with 16GB memory space, the struggle is real. If you love taking photos, recording videos and keep downloading apps, that 12 GB allotted user space runs out very soon. Leef with its iBridge portable memory solution offers an option that might just help out some Apple users.

The iBridge stick is available in 16, 32, 64 and 128GB versions. The 16GB version starts at Rs 4999 on Amazon India and it goes all the way up to Rs 15,800 for the 128GB.

So is the Leef iBridge a worthy accessory to get for an Apple iPhone user? Here’s what we thought of it after using it.

iBridge

When not in use, you can just cover both the ends of the iBridge

iBridge is a portable USB stick with an Apple Lightning port at one end. You can plug into your compatible iPhone or iPad and the other end has a USB stick. If you have a charging cable, then you can use the iBridge to also charge the iPhone. I could not test this feature and I didn’t have the required cable.

Leef has done a pretty good job of designing a compact USB stick with its iBridge. When not in use, you can just cover both the ends of the iBridge and it looks quite nice.

How does it work?

The first time you insert the iBridge, your Apple iPhone or iPad will prompt you to download the Leef app and once you do that, you’ll see four tabs in the app. Transfer Files, Content Viewer, iBridge Camera and Settings.

The Leef iBridge works with the help of a companion app which your iPhone or iPad will prompt to download the moment you connect the accessory

Transfer Files as the name suggests will let you transfer files from the iBridge to the iPhone. You can transfer iPhone photos to the USB stick or vice-versa. While transferring photos from the iPhone, the app will also ask you if it can delete photos from the iPhone and if you’re running low on space, you can easily do so. The app gives the option of copying or moving pictures. When you choose copy as an option, the app will not offer to delete the pictures.

There’s also a File Manager tab in the Transfer File tab and if you have any documents on the iBridge stick you can simply open them and read them on your phone. In File Manager, you have the option of moving the document to the app storage or just leave it on the USB stick.

The Content Viewer tab lets you put movies, documents, photos and music on the iBridge stick and then view them on your iPhone. Users also have the option of then transferring this content to the App, but if you’re running short of space, you might want to avoid doing that. The advantage with this is that you can finally watch all those non-iTunes store movies that Apple won’t let you watch on your iPhone otherwise.

So does it work?

The first iBridge review unit I got, didn’t work with any iPhone or iPad and I kept wondering if I had wrongly formatted the device. While the iPhone would ask if Leef should be granted access to the iBridge, the app itself would keep saying that iBridge was not plugged in.

Luckily with the next iBridge unit, I didn’t face any such issues. Once the device was plugged in, the app read it just fine and transferring data was breeze. Music, videos on the USB stick played easily on the app itself and transferring photos didn’t take too long. Documents on the USB stick also opened easily in the app.

The iBridge Camera, where you can take photos or videos and directly store them on the USB stick also work without any issues.

Verdict

If you hate the closed Apple ecosystem, where transferring music, videos can be a pain, this is a simple and convenient solution. It’s also a great way to gain some extra space on your Apple device if you keep running short of it.