Wootalyzer's Pricing Post! - The price of today's woot item is saved here for future reference
------------------------------------------------------------
Kingston Wi-Drive 16GB Wireless Flash Storage for iOS Devices
$69.99 + $5 Shipping
Condition: New

*DISCLAIMER* Wootalyzer! is in no way affiliated with Woot!, and this post may not always be here!

Hmm I wonder how useful this really is with only a 4-hour charge and now that iPhone users have a free cloud now (both 5GB from Apple and 50GB from Box App..)

Would seem better to have spent the extra $$ to get a bigger drive on your device, but the $20 rebate makes this a pretty good deal!

An answer in search of a question that nobody cares to ask.

This year Halloween fell on the weekend....
Me and Geto Boys Trick or Treatin'....
Robbin' little kids for bags...

--My Mind Playing Tricks On Me

Seems bigger than it needs to be.

If it had a USB port for expansion and could work cross-platform as a wireless NAS, then we'd be on to something.

Why? Really... Why? If its WiFi only, and it doesn't truly expand your iOS device space for Apps, why? With Dropbox being free, 2GB and having an iOS App, and Box.net having an App for 50GB space and FREE via Wifi, I don't see the benefit. All my music is in the cloud and readily available (Google Music, free), my videos are in the cloud (Netflix, Pogo plug, VPN, etc), and now with my photos in the cloud.. For free. Why?

The only benefit I see is immediate backup for photographers? A "local" WiFi device that will store photos much faster than the cloud can... Maybe?

Hmmmmm.....

ohioplayer wrote:This year Halloween fell on the weekend....
Me and Geto Boys Trick or Treatin'....
Robbin' little kids for bags...

--My Mind Playing Tricks On Me

Whoa...haven't thought about that rap in years....freaky one eyed midget...lol.

imtigger2 wrote:Why? Really... Why? If...For free. Why?

New name: "Why-Drive"

Hmm seems like a good idea, but i don't like the fact that it uses wifi and not bluetooth. Also why would you want people to have access to all you stuff if you just want to show them one thing? Its really not that hard for two people to watch the same thing on one iPhone.

What am I missing? Same price on Amazon with free shipping . . .

I can see one use for this. Maybe for the parent managing his kids videos for them. But I guarantee my son will not have anything like an iPhone or iPad until he is of an age where he can manage his own media. Cloud storage is good but maybe not for watching videos on the go as much.

i hate mail-in rebates.

Should have made apps for android and win mobile as well so their market was larger, oh wait android and win7 have sd card slots :D

Does this work with my iPhone?

Hahaha sorry, had to.

Wow, that is really awesome. Best thing ever.
Now ... how about something for those of us that DON'T drink the koolaid?

Ya know, if Jobs had REALLY been so brilliant, his inventions would have included expandable storage using conventional means like USB or SD Cards. Nope, sorry - you get wifi and THE CLOUD!

uskrewed wrote:Should have made apps for android and win mobile as well so their market was larger, oh wait android and win7 have sd card slots :D

bwahaha

mavila wrote:What am I missing? Same price on Amazon with free shipping . . .

You're missing that the $20 rebate only applies if you're buying it from woot:

http://www.amazon.com/Kingston-Wi-Drive-External-WID-16GBZ/dp/B00576APBQ/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1321769947&sr=8-1

and 13 reviews, ave > 4 stars

jaburg wrote:Wow, that is really awesome. Best thing ever.
Now ... how about something for those of us that DON'T drink the koolaid?

Ya know, if Jobs had REALLY been so brilliant, his inventions would have included expandable storage using conventional means like USB or SD Cards. Nope, sorry - you get wifi and THE CLOUD!

Not to mention that he didn't have many inventions. Most things, like windowed operating systems and what became the "mouse" were someone else's inventions that he simply did an outstanding job of making mass-marketable.

No Apple products in our home, either, so I feel your irritation.

too bad you can't just expand the memory on an iOS device with a simple memory card...
that would make this process so much easier

jaburg wrote:Wow, that is really awesome. Best thing ever.
Now ... how about something for those of us that DON'T drink the koolaid?

Ya know, if Jobs had REALLY been so brilliant, his inventions would have included expandable storage using conventional means like USB or SD Cards. Nope, sorry - you get wifi and THE CLOUD!

Learn to love the Cloud and it's backup and storage capabilities. Having ALL my business docs, emails, attachments, photos, music and important contacts EVERYWHERE... Without having to actually carry any of it around, has truly changed the way I do business with how accessible my media and important data is. I love it. In fact with services like MS Cloud, Dropbox and Box.net... Your choice of platform doesn't matter!

Drink the koolaid, bite the Apple, befriend the green robot, pet the Penguin, or peer through the window..... It doesn't matter because your data will be there for you either way.

The product website page includes video and multiple magazine/website reviews:

http://www.kingston.com/flash/wi_drive.asp

If you want a more text-based summary page:

http://www.ec.kingston.com/ecom/configurator_new/partsinfo.asp?root=us&LinkBack=http://www.kingston.com&ktcpartno=WID/16GBZ&id=8

I could see some merit to this for those who aren't in a free wifi area and who would want to not risk exceeding bandwidth caps. For those types, it might prove useful if they wanted to share files, even amongst their various devices.

With the rebate, it's not an insane price. I'd be a lot more tempted by 32 or 64GB, though.

So... buy an Android and plug in a 16GB micro-SD, and you're out maybe $20.

Buy an APPLE device, and 16GB costs you $70.
Faster? No.
Cheaper? No.
Smaller? No.
Lighter? No.

Seems like Apple never changes. And all because they wouldn't include an interface.

This is what happens when you build a device and purposefully leave out an expansion memory card slot. Someone has to come up with a ridiculous workaround to do something that should be easy (and would be on another device).

So will this essentially act as an external drive for my iPod/Phone?
What I mean is, will I be able to run apps directly from it and stream media?

(they probably addressed this in the write up, but alas, I'm lazy.)

Android version is in Beta just in case anyone was wondering.

Here it is:

On the Android Marketplace

If this thing supports UPNP or DLNA (I'm not sure if it does or not) just about anything should be able to stream from it, especially for UPNP (except Samsung stuff which seems to choke on everything).

Bit small for my tastes.

Seems like a waste for only 16GB. If the storage was a bit more I would buy it but you can pickup the Seagate wifi 500GB for $299

Same price on amazon w/ prime shipping

http://www.amazon.com/Kingston-Wi-Drive-External-WID-16GBZ/dp/B00576APBQ/ref=cm_cr_pr_product_top

More like, "WHY Drive"

mrjoewood wrote:I could see some merit to this for those who aren't in a free wifi area and who would want to not risk exceeding bandwidth caps. For those types, it might prove useful if they wanted to share files, even amongst their various devices.

With the rebate, it's not an insane price. I'd be a lot more tempted by 32 or 64GB, though.

Aren't you assuming this device will allow an ad-hock wireless network between your device and this drive? I think a serious flaw is that this has to be used on a personal, private wifi network that both devices can connect to so they can communicate together.

Just a note that you don't need to use the Kingston App for this.
I actually connect manually to mine (no space left for the app)
The dual radio is kind of nice so you can still have WiFi connectivity while streaming.
Hoping they fix that you can't manually enter a hidden SSID via the config page (it only lists broadcast SSIDs to join as secondary WiFi network).

imtigger2 wrote:Aren't you assuming this device will allow an ad-hock wireless network between your device and this drive? I think a serious flaw is that this has to be used on a personal, private wifi network that both devices can connect to so they can communicate together.

Why do you think this thing does not allow ad-hock wireless networ? My eye-fi sd card which is as big as any sd card create it's own wireless network.

imtigger2 wrote:Aren't you assuming this device will allow an ad-hock wireless network between your device and this drive? I think a serious flaw is that this has to be used on a personal, private wifi network that both devices can connect to so they can communicate together.

The whole point is this creates an ad hoc network and helps if you're somewhere without online access (iPad or iPod Touch without cell capability or iphone out of range).

Despite the truth of comments on other devices having extra storage slots, this let's you load content once instead of multiple devices. Might be problem on flights though as I'm guessing they might object to the device sending the signal.

For anyone interested, here's a review:
http://www.engadget.com/2011/07/09/kingston-wi-drive-wireless-storage-for-ios-review/

coreysromero wrote:Seems like a waste for only 16GB. If the storage was a bit more I would buy it but you can pickup the Seagate wifi 500GB for $299

Actually the GoFlex is $200. And works with Android. Not sure I need the 300 HD movies it mentions though

http://www.seagate.com/www/en-us/products/external/external-hard-drive/goflex-satellite

whtfrst wrote:An answer in search of a question that nobody cares to ask.

Exactly.

miyoshinum5 wrote:Hmm seems like a good idea, but i don't like the fact that it uses wifi and not bluetooth. [snip]

Bluetooth is MAGNITUDES slower - that is why they used WiFi.

WiFi (54Gb/s; higher for 11n) vs. Bluetooth (24Mb/s).

mavila wrote:What am I missing? Same price on Amazon with free shipping . . .

The rebate! $20 off and it is only for Woot!