Storage solution company SanDisk Corp., is releasing a flash drive which the company said can move files from iPhone and iPad devices up to three times faster than other thumb drives in the market.
SanDisk’s (NASDAQ: SNDK) new iXpand flash Drive uses Lightning, a proprietary compute bus and power connector developed by Apple (NASDAQ: AAPL) to replace its previous 30-pin dock connector for connecting iPhones, iPads and iPods to other devices and peripherals.
The flash drive goes on sale Sunday on the App Store for iPhone and iPad. It comes in 16GB, 32GB, and 64GB capacities and is priced from US$60 to $120. It is compatible with iPhone 5 through iPhone 6 and 6 Plus phones, the iPad Air, iPad Air 2, iPad mini, iPad mini 2, and iPad mini 3 running iOS7 or iOS8.
iXpand is the “easiest way to transfer photos and videos” to and from iPhones and iPads, according to SanDisk. The drive also automatically expands the storage capacity of the Apple devices by up to 64GB. The 2.5”x1.4”x.46” drive can also be set to automatically copy photos and videos an Apple device’s camera roll.
The drive comes with a 3.7-volt lithium-ion battery that charges when connected to a mobile or desktop device.
The iXpand synch app enables cross-platform encryption so that files can be password-protected on the drive and the decrypted when transferred to a Mac or PC and vice versa.
The drive uses Lightning and USB 2.0 interfaces. It is compatible with Mac and PC machines as well as Windows XP, Windows 7, Windows 8 and Mac OS X version 10.5.
iXpand supports WMV, AVI, MKV, MP4 and MCV video formats.
Videos stored on the iXpand can be instantly played directly on an iPhone or iPad.