SdCard posts

Anyone struggling with the challenge of developing for the iPad, a platform whose hardware has not yet been released, should welcome iSimulate. For just ten bucks, you can test your applications using event inputs from a real device. Yes, you'll be working with the limited geometry of an iPhone -- fewer pixels, not the same device shape -- but you'll gain access to a much wider range of gesture and accelerometer events to help you debug and develop your apps.

Using iSimulate involves little more than compiling in a framework and running an iPhone-based application that you download from the App Store. You'll need to add -ObjC to your linker flags and include the Core Location framework. This latter is needed in order to provide simulated compass and GPS events to your app. Once run in the simulator, iSimulate will automatically find that running app and offer to link to it.

It took me only a few minutes to bring my Xcode project into iSimulate compliance and get it working with the iPhone. In use, I found the entire process of interacting with my phone to generate events on the Simulator far easier and more intuitive than I expected. I suspect I'll keep using iSimulate over the next few weeks until the iPad debuts and can comfortably recommend it to other devs.

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It's cool that Apple is getting all cozy with SD cards for the iPad; it helps to sell the idea that the iPad is closer to a MacBook than an iPhone. As useful as an SD card reader is for the iPad, there is one minor hiccup: it probably won't work with the iPhone.

ZoomMediaPlus aims to fill that gap with the ZoomIt SD card reader/application for the iPhone. The ZoomIt is a dongle that plugs in to the iPhone's dock connector and (with the use of Zoom's app) allows you to view and share content stored on an SD card.

According to ZoomMediaPlus, the card reader works in conjunction with its application that can be installed on either an iPhone or iPod touch. The app has a file browser that lets you browse files by group such as documents, pictures, or videos. It's also possible to copy files of any type from an SD card to your iPhone's internal storage.

The ZoomIt iPhone app also has the ability to quickly and easily send photos and documents from the SD card via email. Further, photos on an SD card can be sent via MMS or simply added to the internal photo library.

The ZoomIt SD card reader is available now for pre-order for $49.95US -- which is a savings of over 15% off the final retail price ($59.95US). According to ZoomMediaPlus, pre-orders will begin shipping in April of this year. Of course, by that time, Apple's own SD card reader could be available and surprising us all with iPhone compatibility.

[via Engadget]

Hard Mac reports on a newly released Apple Knowledge Base article that reveals this nice little tidbit about the new MacBook Pro's SD slot. Not only can you use it to dump pictures off your digital camera, but you can use it as a boot disk if need be. The article also reveals:

• You can use the thinner MultiMediaCards with the SD slot. Cards that have a thickness or surfaces that exceed 2.1mm should not be used.
• You can use standard SD cards (4MB to 4GB) and SDHC (4-32GB) cards in the slot. MiniSD, MicroSD, MiniSDHC and MicroSDHC can also be used with adapters.
• The SD slot will work with cards that exceed 32GB
• SD cards with the exFAT file system will not be read, will need to be reformatted as a FAT32
• SD cards are read as USB storage devices
• To use the SD card as a startup volume, change the default partition table to GUID and format the card to use the Mac OS Extended file format
• SDIO (Secure Digital Input Output) cards will not be recognized
• The SD card slot will work with Boot Camp for both Windows XP and Windows Vista.

[Via Macworld]