Apple’s rumored ultra-slim and light 12-inch Retina MacBook Air is far from being official, but there’s already one accessory ready for it, as announced at MWC 2015 in Barcelona, Spain. Though to be fair, it’s not just future 12-inch MacBook Air buyers who will be happy to see it in stores.
FROM EARLIER: The best accessory you can’t use with your Galaxy S6 or Galaxy S6 edge
SanDisk on Sunday announced new mobile flash drives that should make it even easier for consumers to transfer files including a Type-C-ready drive. While the company didn’t specifically highlight any unannounced product for it, the redesigned MacBook Air immediately comes to mind, as Apple is rumored to use a Type-C USB connector in the new notebook.
SanDisk’s new memory solution is actually a dual USB drive with a Type-C connector at one end and a USB 3.0 connector at the other end. The device, which will initially be available with 32GB of storage, will launch in the second quarter of the year for an undisclosed price.
In addition to the dual USB drive, SanDisk also announced a higher capacity 128GB iXpand Flash Drive for iPhone and iPad, priced at $149.99 and a massive 200GB microSD card.
The full press release follows below.
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SanDisk Makes it Easy for Consumers to Transfer, Access and Share Photos Across All of Their Favorite Devices
Introduces two new mobile flash drives to simplify management of photos, videos and other files captured on mobile devicesMOBILE WORLD CONGRESS, BARCELONA, March 1, 2015 – SanDisk Corporation (NASDAQ: SNDK), a global leader in flash storage solutions, today introduced two new, innovative mobile memory solutions that help consumers manage and transfer content captured on their favorite devices. The company’s first Dual USB Drive with Type C connector, ideal for Type C-ready connected devices, and the 128GB iXpand™ Flash Drive, designed for iPhone and iPad, both enable consumers to quickly and easily transfer content directly from a mobile device to a Mac or PC computer.
According to a recent industry report from IDC1, this year people will capture and share an estimated 1.6 trillion images, and seven out of 10 of those images will be captured on a mobile device. With this rising trend, users want to be able to easily share and store their content across multiple devices and operating systems – in a seamless, intuitive and secure way.
“With the rapidly increasing amount of content captured on mobile devices, we know that consumers want easy ways to manage it all. In fact, our research shows that 82% of US smartphone users find transferring of photos, videos, music and other files to be very important to them2, and 67% would like new, easy ways of transferring those files,” said Dinesh Bahal, vice president, product marketing, SanDisk. “We are focused on delivering memory solutions designed to simplify the transfer process, while also providing expanded storage capacity so they can keep capturing and sharing great memories.”
SanDisk’s First Dual USB Drive with Type C Connector
According to a recent report from Strategy Analytics3, by 2016 12% of handsets alone will feature Type C connectors. Anticipating significant demand for this new platform, SanDisk is introducing its first-ever USB flash drive with a Type C connector. The new Dual USB Drive features a Type C connector on one end and a USB 3.0 on the other for fast and easy transfer between next-generation devices4 and PC or Mac computers. The new Dual USB Drive will initially be available in a 32GB5 capacity.The Dual USB Drive with Type C connector also works with the SanDisk® Memory Zone app, which gives users even greater control over their mobile device’s memory storage. The app, available for free download from the Google Play™ store, is compatible with most Android™-powered devices and allows users to easily locate, organize, transfer and back up data. When the device is connected, the Memory Zone app auto-launches, and allows users to easily manage and transfer content between their mobile device and the drive.
New, Higher Capacity 128GB iXpand Flash Drive for iPhone and iPad6
SanDisk’s popular iXpand Flash drive is designed to quickly transfer photos and videos from iPhone or iPad to Mac or PC computers – without cables, pre-settings, Internet connections, data caps or bandwidth limitations. In response to customer demand, SanDisk is now offering a new 128GB iXpand Flash Drive. When used with the new iPhone 6, iPhone 6 Plus, iPad Air 2 or iPad mini 3 128GB models, the new iXpand Flash Drive instantly doubles the available storage for photos and videos, music, and other multimedia files.The well-rated and full-featured iXpand Sync app, available on the App Store for iPhone and iPad allows users to automatically sync, backup and transfer photos and videos. It launches when the iXpand Flash Drive is plugged into an iPhone or iPad.
Additionally, the iXpand flash drive enables effortless playback of videos and music directly from the drive, including non-native and PC-friendly file formats such as AVI, MKV and WMV67.
The iXpand Sync app also now allows users to take advantage of Apple’s Touch ID fingerprint identity sensor on iPhone 6, iPhone 6 Plus, iPhone 5s, iPad Air 2 and iPad mini 3 running iOS 8 to encrypt and decrypt sensitive files on the drive, utilize popular apps to open files from the drive, as well as save content generated by these apps directly to the drive.
Pricing and Availability
The 32GB SanDisk Dual USB Drive with Type C connector features a two-year warranty8 and will be available worldwide in Q2.The iXpand Flash Drive features a two-year warranty8. Its available in 16GB, 32GB, 64GB and 128GB capacities, with MSRPs of $59.99 to $149.99, and is compatible with iPhone 6, iPhone 6 Plus, iPhone 5s, iPhone 5c, iPhone 5, iPad Air 2, iPad Air, iPad mini 3, iPad mini 2, iPad mini and iPod touch (5th generation) running iOS 8 or iOS 7. The 128GB drive is available immediately at http://www.SanDisk.com, and will available next month at leading retailers worldwide.
About SanDisk
SanDisk Corporation (NASDAQ: SNDK), a Fortune 500 and S&P 500 company, is a global leader in flash storage solutions. For more than 25 years, SanDisk has expanded the possibilities of storage, providing trusted and innovative products that have transformed the electronics industry. Today, SanDisk’s quality, state-of-the-art solutions are at the heart of many of the world’s largest data centers, and embedded in advanced smartphones, tablets and PCs. SanDisk’s consumer products are available at hundreds of thousands of retail stores worldwide. For more information, visit http://www.sandisk.com.1 IDC Worldwide Digital Image 2015–2019 Forecast: The Image Capture and Share Bible (February 2015 # 254256)
2SanDisk consumer market survey of 1,003 participants in the USA, June 2014
3Strategy Analytics: Will USB Type-C Handsets Takeoff? January 23, 2015
4Requires device with Type C connector. See http://www.sandisk.com/dualdrive-c
51GB=1,000,000,000 bytes. Actual user storage less.
6Supports iPhone 5 and newer, iPad Air, iPad with Retina display (4th generation), iPad mini with Retina display, iPad mini and newer, iOS7 + required
7Supported video formats: .WMV, .AVI, .MKV, .MP4, .MOV. Some DRM-protected content cannot be streamed. Check with the content provider for playback restrictions.
8See http://www.sandisk.com/wug
9Product availability may vary by country and retailer.
