When setting a new work area, downloading can take anywhere from 20 minutes to an hour and seems to be taking longer and longer with every download. We have tried restarting the iPads, using different wifi networks, placing the iPads closer to the router during downloading, and nothing seems to speed up the downloading .
Has anyone else experienced this issue? If so, is there anything that can be done to speed up the downloading process?
I believe this is caused by the fact that the photo features in the study area have to be downloaded. I think you just need a smaller work area.
If you are having to work all over the place in a single day, you might be able to download new work areas in the field at a local library, McDonald's, etc. In cases where we have to visit multiple work areas, but don't need to make many changes or additions, we keep track on paper and enter in the data back at the office.
If your organization has access to ArcGIS.com, and you don't care about editing photos, you could make your own map without the photo feature. The downside of course is that you wouldn't be able to view, edit, or add new photos in the field.