So if I want to stick a USB ram drive into my camera connectivity kit and copy a PDF file to my iPad I have to "jailbreak" my iPad?

That seems extreme. But I rooted my droid phone to get tethering and so far the world hasn't stopped spinning. Any reason not to jailbreak my iPad? Any way to move files back and forth without going through iTunes?

Well, if the ONLY place that PDF is available if your USB drive, the the answer is probably yes.

But there are lots of ways to get a PDF onto the iPad without jailbreaking if the PDF is on a desktop computer.
Dropbox, iBooks, Documents2Go, Goodreader are just some of the ones I use regularly.

But if you want full access to the iPad filesystem, jailbreaking is the way to go. Check out iFile in Cydia once you do it. It is a fully featured file manager which can mount compatible drives using the CCK.

Originally Posted by f4780y

Well, if the ONLY place that PDF is available if your USB drive, the the answer is probably yes.

But there are lots of ways to get a PDF onto the iPad without jailbreaking if the PDF is on a desktop computer.
Dropbox, iBooks, Documents2Go, Goodreader are just some of the ones I use regularly.

But if you want full access to the iPad filesystem, jailbreaking is the way to go. Check out iFile in Cydia once you do it. It is a fully featured file manager which can mount compatible drives using the CCK.

The PDF file is on a USB jump drive....it's when I'm away from my computer that I'm talking about.

Originally Posted by Lizard king

The PDF file is on a USB jump drive....it's when I'm away from my computer that I'm talking about.

I understand. I was suggesting when you copy the PDF onto the thumb drive you could do one of several simple steps to make it accessible on iPad without the drive even coming into play.
Alternatively, if you don't have the iPad to hand and / or it is always offline when out and about, you can jailbreak and use iFile to access the drive via CCK (if it is low power), amongst other solutions.