| Cult of Mac

Chocolate Hub 2 should ship with every MacBook

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Chocolate Hub
Chocolate Hub 2 gives you back all the ports you need.
Photo: Lyle Kahney/Cult of Mac

Apple doesn’t think you need traditional USB ports and SD card readers anymore, but for the vast majority of MacBook users, that’s false. That’s why every model should ship with the excellent Chocolate Hub 2.

This pocket-sized device gives you back all the connections you frequently rely on, including USB and HDMI. It also has a built-in Qi charging pad for juicing up your iPhone 8, iPhone 8 Plus, or iPhone X on the move.

These iPhone storage gadgets are perfect for data hogs [Review]

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iPhone storage
Three great gadgets with different ways to back up your iPhone files.
Photo: David Pierini/Cult of Mac

A friend emailed me with an iPhone crisis. The storage capacity on her iPhone 6 was full and she was unable to shoot pictures or videos. She needed space fast.

I walked her through the steps on how to purchase additional space on iCloud. But I also said I had a few devices that plug into the phone and allow her to quickly offload their data. She asked that I stand by.

Does the new MacBook Pro deserve the criticism? [Friday Night Fights]

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fnf
Are you pleased with the new MacBook Pro?
Photo: Ste Smith/Cult of Mac

The new MacBook Pro with Touch Bar might be Apple’s fastest-selling Pro machine to date, but a lot of fans are far from happy with it.

Friday Night Fights bugIt’s thinner and lighter than its predecessors, and it boasts the fastest storage we’ve ever seen on a Mac. But it’s also a lot more expensive, and it’s missing traditional USB-A ports that the vast majority of us still rely on every day. The SD card slot is gone, too.

But, does it really deserve all this criticism? Join us in this week’s Friday Night Fight as we debate the new MacBook Pro and whether Apple messed up this year’s refresh.

TarDisk is a slim solution for stretching MacBook storage [Deals]

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TarDisk adds 64GB of flash storage to your MacBook Air via the SD slot, without changing its slim profile.
TarDisk adds 64GB of flash storage to your MacBook Air via the SD slot, without changing its slim profile.
Photo: Cult of Mac Deals

The MacBook Air is delightfully lean, but it’s less than pleasing when its drive space runs thin. It’s a costly hassle to upgrade the internal drive, which makes TarDisk’s 64 gig SD drive expansion a very attractive alternative. It plugs right into the SD slot on the side of your laptop and stays out of the way, for an easy expansion that you can get right now for just $99.99.

Sandisk 128GB MicroSD Card, Because Why Not, Right? [MWC 2014]

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Yes, this is a picture of a microSD card.
Yes, this is a picture of a microSD card.

You can now double the storage space of your MacBook Air by jamming Sandisk’s new 128GB microSD card into an adapter in the SD card slot. Or you can slide it into any number of devices that use the pink-nail-sized storage standard. And if you are using it in a phone or a camera, it’s fast enough to capture HD video recorded straight to the card.

Toshiba FlashAir. Promising, But Ultimately Flawed [Review]

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FlashAir byToshiba
Category: SD Cards
Works With: Cameras
Price: $50

What the hell is wrong with wireless SD card makers? They manage to cram an entire Wi-Fi router into an SD card, along with the memory that’s already in there, and yet the software looks like they got their idiot cousin to write it in a weekend for like $100.

Toshiba’s FlashAir is a great example. The hardware is sound, and has some really great features. But the software is awful. Truly, breathtakingly terrible.

PNY StorEDGE, A Sawed-Off 128GB SD Card For Your MacBook’s SD Slot

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Can you see it?
Can you see it?

Remember those adapters that let you permanently flush-mount a microSD card in your MacBook Air’s SD card slot, adding welcome (if slow) extra storage to your SSD portable? I certainly do: I mixed up the two main brands when I wrote a review and never heard the last of it.

Now you can skip that extra step, because PNY now makes a sawed-off SD card that does the same job – without an adapter.

Eye-Fi Mobi Promises Non-Ridiculous Setup For iOS Devices

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Eye-Fi’s new Mobi cards are designed to work better with iOS and Android apps, making wireless transfers from your camera to your iDevice much easier. The iOS app has been updated, too, bringing support for the iPhone 5’s larger screen, just 8 months after it was launched. This, combined with the crappy non-native OS X app shows that Eye-Fi is getting really serious about Apple gear.

New Asus Transformer Pad Infinity Tablet Has As Many Pixels As A Retina MacBook Pro

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Asus has today announced its latest Transformer Pad Infinity slate at Computex 2013 in Taipei, and boy is it a beast. Not only does it carry NVIDIA’s latest Tegra 4 processor — which has a 72-core GeForce GPU — but it also has a 10.1-inch display with the same 2560×1600 resolution as the 13-inch Retina MacBook Pro.

That’s a whopping 299 pixels-per-inch.

Wireless MicroSD Adapter Beams Photos To Your iPad

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Here’s a neat idea: at least until all cameras have built-in Wi-Fi anyway: It’s a Wi-Fi SD card adapter — like the Eye-Fi cards, only instead of packing their own flash storage they have a hole which will happily hold a the microSD card of your choice.

Thus, you buy the adapter once, and stock up on a (small) pocketful of mini memory cards. This, the thinking goes, will be cheaper and more future proof than building Wi-Fi into every damn SD card you use.