Mass Storage For Phones

The Demo conference started today, and the first news out of it comes from Seagate, which will be introducing pocket-sized, 20-GB, Bluetooth-equipped drives for cellphones this summer. They call this tech "DAVE" (one wonders whether the acronym or the expansion came first). Quoting: "DAVE-based products will be about the size of a credit card and less than half and inch thick, with an operating range of up to 30 feet from the connected phone... Software to hook the drives up to cellphones has already been produced for J2ME, BREW, Windows Mobile, Symbian and XCCC. Palm compatibility is forthcoming. The platform is open source..."

Re:Seems cool but..

[KoldKompress]

Engadget says 10 hours of continuous use.
Source: Here [engadget.com]

Re:Seems cool but..

[gsn]

Seagate won't, however, be making consumer drives itself: Dave is for telcos and handset OEMs for sale under their own brands. Furthermore, the package isn't merely Seagate drives and an application framework, as Dave includes proprietary technology: even with WiFi blaring and BlueTooth listening contstantly, a Dave drive offers 10 hours of active use and up to 14 days standby. Thusly-equipped drives will also work with standard computers.

(emphasis mine)

RTFA seriously. Both your questions answered in two lines. The carriers won't lock you out of a device that they carry which is about the only way you will get your hands on this since Seagate won't be selling them directly. Of course that means that the retail price will include a big fat carrier markup.

And they probably won't let you use it with your PC because oh noes you could your (illegal) music on it and listen to it with your phone instead of using their overpriced service, and share it over bluetooth or WiFi even. So its usefulness is still limited. So using it as secondary service for an iPhone is straight out.

Re:Seems cool but..

[SpaceballsTheUserNam]

My advice, get a phone with a Micro SD slot. Also I switched away from sprint to the local ma bell carrier. (I HATE SPRINT) But anyway, got a nokia 6126 and having the Micro SD slot kicks ass. No more downloading ringtones or games at $5 a pop, and moving mp3s, videos, and images to and from my phone is now 100% painless, plus the gig of storage is nice too.