It’s been a couple of months since Apple unveiled the iPhone 15 (buy here), and they’ve not stopped boasting about its video capabilities. Last month, Blackmagic also announced their new camera app for the iPhone, the imaginatively titled Blackmagic Camera.
It’s becoming clear the iPhone 15 is intended for shooting serious video. It even supports USB-C SSDs (finally!). But are yours fast enough? OWC’s new free OWC Drive Speed app will tell you.
OWC Drive Speed – Why do we need a speed test?
It’s taken a while, but thanks to the EU, Apple is now finally putting USB-C sockets in all their new iPhones, starting with the iPhone 15. The addition of the USB-C socket also seems to have convinced Apple to finally let us easily access external storage devices, like SSDs.
Blackmagic’s recent Blackmagic Camera app turns the iPhone into something of a video powerhouse. It offers the same UI that users of Blackmagic’s cameras are familiar with. Apple even used Blackmagic Camera running on the iPhone 15 to shoot their latest keynote event.
Using an iPhone for video, like any other camera, is going to require a lot of storage space. And you’ll want it to be an easily accessible storage space. With USB-C external storage capabilities, you’re able to save straight to an external drive.
When you’re done filming, you can just pull it out and plug it straight into your editing device, whether that be a Mac or PC desktop or even an iPad.
OWC Drive Speed works with 3rd party SSDs
Most SSDs on the market today are generally quick enough for video editing. To some degree, at least. Their price point has gotten to where most of us own one or several of them. We might even have a bunch of older ones sitting around on a shelf gathering dust.
Maybe we want to get some use out of them and wonder if those old drives will be fast enough for the iPhone 15’s video needs. Well, if that sounds like you, you’re in luck. OCW’s new Drive Speed app for the iPhone isn’t limited to just testing OWC’s own SSDs. It will work with USB SSDs from any manufacturer.
Of course, newer, faster drives are going to potentially offer more speed and reliability. I’ve actually been using OWC’s Envoy Pro Elektron SSD (buy here) for a couple of years now for backing up my Android devices, and it’s an excellent option. It also works great as an editing SSD for DaVinci Resolve on the iPad.
Speaking of the iPad…
While many iPad models have come with USB-C ports for a few years now and support external SSDs, there is some bad news regarding the app. OWC has told DIYP that the new OWC Drive Speed app is for iPhone only and doesn’t work on the iPad.
Hopefully, this’ll change at some point as more people switch to an iPhone/iPad workflow for shooting and editing in Blackmagic Camera and DaVinci Resolve. After all, while having a drive fast enough to save your iPhone footage is important, so is being able to edit that footage!
The company hasn’t suggested that an iPad version is coming, but I really hope they consider porting it over.
Price and Availability
The OWC Drive Speed app is available to download completely free from the Apple App Store.
