Family Tree Technology & Privacy: Ancestry, FTM, and TreeVault Advice

I used to use ancestry for my research, which I found quite convenient as I could access it anywhere in the world. I set all my permissions to private and the trees were not even available via search. But somehow, all the images I uploaded WERE. When I found out that other people had used them I flipped out because most of them weren't mine and I didn't have permission to share them. I deleted my trees and all media and moved everything offline to Family Tree Maker.

Now, however, I need to access my work on my iPad. If I understand everything correctly, I need a TreeVault in order for FTM to work across platforms. But I am confused about the details--I don't want everything to upload automatically from my laptop to my ipad, because I don't want to always be connected to the internet. I need the ipad to be able to VIEW my tree, not enter data. Ideally, I would much rather copy the .ged file to my ipad so that I could see the tree there, but I couldn't find these kinds of answers in the FAQ.

Could the hive weigh in and help me to figure out how to proceed? Thank you.