Brian Dusablon

I’m kicking off a new series of reviews here: Three Up, Three Down.

First up is the Kingston Wi-Drive, a portable wireless hard drive for iOS devices.

Leading Off

I’ve been using Kingston’s Wi-Drive for the last month. It’s a small, lightweight wireless hard drive for use with iOS devices. The model I’ve been using is 16GB. To connect, you use the Wi-Drive app (free in the App Store). Estimated battery life is 4 hours, which I found to be accurate. It comes nicely packaged, with a nod to Cupertino.

Three Up

1. Everything about it is fast. Using the app, setting up the connection, and accessing content on the Wi-Drive is fast. After about five minutes to set up the app and connect to the drive, I was streaming Batman Begins. Once I selected the movie in the app, it was playing in less than three seconds. And scrubbing forward and back in the movie was instant. Zero delays. Very fast. It also remembered where I left off in the movie I was watching.
2. It’s light and small. It’s slightly thinner than an iPhone 4s and can easily fit in any pocket, purse or backpack for easy portability (thought I don’t recommend it for reasons outlined below).
3. You can share the connection. Up to three users can connect simultaneously, allowing up to three people to access the media on the drive wirelessly. I experienced no issues accessing the same content on multiple devices at the same time.

Three Down

1. You can only connect via WiFi. This is limiting, because you have to disconnect from your regular WiFi network to use the device. You can use the app’s wireless network function to connect the Wi-Drive to a wireless network, but it’s not perfect. For instance, I couldn’t type in a network that wasn’t broadcasting its SSID. Also, if you leave the car or hotel room, your device may not reconnect to the Wi-Drive automatically. Having to connect to its WiFi network, then open the app, then find your media every time can become rather annoying. I’d rather just have the media on my device. Finally, you can’t use iPhone tethering while you’re using the Wi-Drive.
2. It’s expensive. When I received the drive, it was priced at $129 and $179 for the 16GB and 32GB models, respectively. Currently prices have dropped to $69 and $99 on Amazon, which is much better.
3. It gets hot when it’s being used. Really hot. Scorching hot. Not good. While it’s built for portability, you can’t keep this in a pocket, a laptop bag or even resting near a piece of paper, for fear it might catch on fire or burn up the drive.

The Final Score

I can see this device being useful for someone with an 8GB iOS device, families on a road trip or a long plane ride, or possibly small teams during a business meeting. Outside of those scenarios, it’s doubtful that you’ll get much use out of a Wi-Drive, and the heat is a major concern. For the money, you’d be better off upgrading to a larger capacity device or upgrading your Dropbox account.

Jay Cross recently posted about his horrible experience with United Airlines:

Cull out your best customers, the repeaters who make the airline profitable. Then throw obstacles in their path, demonstrate your inefficiencies, put in surprise restrictions, and do your best to drive those good customers away.

Jay Cross – United Breaks Relationships

Contrast Jay’s story with that of Peter Shankman’s:

That meant that in just under three hours, someone at Morton’s Corporate had to see my tweet, get authorization to do this stunt, get in touch with Morton’s Hackensack, and place the order. Then Morton’s Hackensack had to cook the order, get it boxed up, and get a server to get in his car, and drive to Newark Airport (never an easy task, no matter where you’re coming from) then, (and this is the part the continues to blow me away,) while all this was happening, track down my flight, where I was landing, and be there when I walked out of security!

Peter Shankman – The Greatest Customer Service Story Ever Told

These days, it seems we’re all numb to stories like Jay’s, because we experience them more and more frequently. Stories like Peter’s are more amazing because of how rare they have become. And, it’s not like we don’t hear about the good ones because they’re not shared. The days of people only sharing bad experiences are over — we’re now in the era of over-sharing. Now we hear about every experience, good or bad.

Peter goes on to say:

Customer service is no longer about telling people how great you are. It’s about producing amazing moments in time, and letting those moments become the focal point of how amazing you are, told not by you, but by the customer who you thrilled.

People are going to share their experiences. What kind of story do you want your customers to tell?

If you touch my junk, I’ll have you arrested.

This is getting out of hand. Would this be allowed anywhere else? There are better ways to reduce threats.

Why is it that when I get delayed on a flight, it’s always AFTER I board the damn plane?

Today, I had the pleasure of watching as several grounds crew folks stared into the engine on the left wing of our plane, right outside of my window. The captain told us over the loudspeaker we had two mechanical issues that needed to be resolved before we could take off and that we’d be about 20-30 minutes late. No biggie, except that’s not what really went down.

For about 30 minutes, absolutely NOTHING happened. I didn’t see anyone outside the plane, and I didn’t hear anything from el capitain. Thank goodness for my iPhone and Dexter! After a while, I start seeing some activity outside my window. Let me tell you how very reassuring it was to see several different workers come, peek into the engine, and then walk away. WTF!

After a few more minutes, two mechanics were joined by the pilots. They all looked into the engine several times, a couple “I don’t know” gestures made me feel really good.

So now we’re pushing an hour on the delay. The captain comes back on, says there’s a nick in one of the blades in the engine. This is where it gets good. He says there’s some discussion about whether or not it warrants an immediate repair. Apparently, there’s a 58-page manual they have to go through and some people they have to talk to in order to decide whether or not to repair the nick (by machining it down) before we take off. He is telling 200+ people on his flight that the powers that be are not sure if this issue is really serious enough that they have to repair it before we can fly.

I guess we got lucky (depending on how you look at it), and it was designated bad enough to repair before we could take off, so they spent another 20 minutes repairing the nick. Meanwhile, the captain (note that this is already an hour into the delay) informs us that we can leave the plane. However, if they finish the repair and we’re not back on board, we’re SOL because they are leaving ASAP and not waiting for anyone.

Why even bother telling us we could get off the plane at this point?!

Just to be sure we had plenty of things to complain about on this flight, during all of this we had two very unhappy kids nearby for entertainment. Now, I have two kids, and I’ve flown with them, so I have no problem with some crying kids (thank you noise-canceling headphones). They’re kids. They do that. However, they should have let these poor mothers off the plane at the beginning of the delay so the kids wouldn’t be so restless. At least I wasn’t in first class. If I’d paid for a first class ticket and had screaming kids in the row directly behind me, with nothing separating us but a thin blue curtain, there’d be some ‘splainin’ to do.

Note: First Class on most flights is a total ripoff. Most of the time you’ve got kids right behind you in the first rows of Coach, with nothing but the curtain. The seats aren’t that much bigger, and I’m sure the food/drinks don’t make it worth the extra money.

To top things off, when I arrived at baggage claim, this is what my bag looked like coming down the conveyor belt, ha:

So, that’s my journey out to Cali. Hopefully legs 2 and 3 of my trip will be less eventful.

Slideshow of plane repair:

Small bonus: got some really neat pictures (low quality with iPhone) while we were in the air: