One criticism of Apple’s popular iOS devices (iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch) is that they don’t have Secure Digital flash memory card slots. This means that to back up the data from an iOS device or to access additional data you have to be tethered to a computer (or use a cloud based service such as DropBox or Apple’s upcoming iCloud) . Not so good when you are away from a computer or a WiFi hotspot.
Kingston is releasing a new product, the Wi-Drive which combines a WiFi wireless access point, a flash memory drive, a battery, and a App for the iOS device that lets it communicate and share files. This makes the Wi-Drive a mobile wireless fileserver for your iDevice and for up to two of your friends as well.
What can you do with it?
- How about backing up your photos, documents and music while you are on the road?
- Or maybe connecting to a library of iTunes music, photos, podcasts and movies that are too large to fit on your phone?
- Sharing movies and music between three iDevices means that a copy of each media file doesn’t have to be stored on each device.
- What about transferring documents between two iOS devices?
- The Wi-Drive will ship in two capacities, 16GB and 32GB
- It is iPhone sized – 119.2 x 60 x 9.6 mm
- It has a built-in Wi-Fi 802.11g/n server with a 30 foot (10 M) range
- Its rechargeable battery is good for a minimum of 4 hours
- The Wi-Drive application is a free download from the Apple AppStore
Available in July 2011 from CanadaRAM