In the same way the we posted recently that we wanted 1 App to rule them all. We think that SD is going to become the king of all removable media.

It’s said that for something to be a compelling reason for people to upgrade. The new device or format needs to be either a major improvement in quality, cheaper, smaller or combine several devices together.

As we have all seen Blueray has been extremely slow to take off as a format. The main reason being that DVD was so successful in terms of user uptake & also quality. When we all upgraded from VHS it was a no brainer. Our machines heads were cloged and dirty, our video tapes were huge & starting to deteriorate & DVD’s were not only smaller but provided phenomenally better quality at a similar price and also had better smaller machines with a ‘no contact’ way of reading the discs. It also had the benefit of being able to play our large CD collections

Blueray in comparison has not been so compelling. It is not only priced at a premium but it’s getting to the point where the average consumer is already happy with the quality achieved by DVD’s, not to mention it offers no benefit of combining stuff like your CD player & VCR into one device but instead will just be replacing perfectly good equipment you already have. It’s the same size so once again you don’t benefit there either. And lastly it seems to have missed the point that devices are getting smaller & lighter. With people becoming accustomed to the poor quality of youtube downloads & still loving them, no wonder people aren’t upgrading.

And let’s face it, the average technophobe mum or dad doesn’t know the difference between bluetooth & blueray. I seriously over heard a lady in a shop strongly saying “No I don’t need that because my son told me I already have it in my phone” when referring to a blueray player

So in my thinking, lets just skip Blueray

Now this is where the topic of SD comes in. SD is not only smaller but it’s used in a massive variety of products that make it a truly universal format. Products that could not only not fit a Blueray disk or even a DVD. The SD’s power requirements are also a major factor as it requires no moving components or power sucking motors & they’re hard to scratch unlike optical disks.

SD is already apearing in TV’s, laptops & desktop computers, incar nav, MP3’s, digital photo frames, mobile phones, camera’s both point-&-click & even higer end models, Stereos, DVD recorders & set top PVR’s. So once you have dumped your media on to it you’re set to go on almost anything.

Speaking of media, SD also allows it to be locked so you can’t wipe the media which means it’s a great avenue for distributing movies or music in hard copy form. There are also environmental benefits to the reduced amount of plastic & packaging needed & also transport & shipping.

Even if you compare the projected tech pipelines for both Blueray & SD you see that SD will come out on top. Blueray is headed for 200gb multi layer disks & the new SDXC format is expected to reach up to 2TB, thats a decent sized hard drive. It’s also going to increase the reading speeds up to 300MB/s which is more than enough for movies etc.

Oh & have you seen the mini & micro cards!!! they are incredibly tiny. Perfect for mobiles & portable devices.

So how does this all fit into iPhography I hear you ask? Well as you probably know Apple has been fitting SD reader/writers to their Macbook’s & is expected to be adding them to upcoming iMac’s. Now Imagine for a second that Apple does release their rumoured Tapplet device, in order for it to be truly useful your going to need some kind of removable media & a DVD or Blue Ray disk drive is just too big and energy sucking. But if all of Apple’s devices across the line including the iPhone (with a micro SD) adopted SD, it would have huge benefits to both Apple & us.

Apple can not only reduce the size of it’s devices but also drive down the price of solid state memory used as hard drives for those same devices by making it a universal media. They can also get some more environmental brownie points

Now here is the important part for iPhographers. Have you ever been in a photolab wondering how the hell can you actually get your photos printed off your iPhone?? Yeah exactly, it’s next to impossible & not to mention your one of the few people left who have a device that cant print it’s photo’s easily. But with a neat little micro SD you could whip it out & print off those pics in a flash at your local lab without having to sync with your home computer & use inkjet ink which I checked on mine was about the same price as gold (not joking!) And better still, when your mates come over, you can put the micro SD card into an adapter (to bring it up to full size) & stick it in your TV or digital photo frame to show them your latest iPhography.

It may even enable Apple or studios to distribute movies or music in hard format to your iPhones etc (Not sure how keen Apple would be on this)

Other possibilities could include being able to make multiple copies of your photos off your iPhone so you can give to family & friends etc. How cool would it be to go over to grandma’s house & say “here you go nana, stick this in your photo frame, it’s all the pics from our wedding”

iPhographers should hope that there is even a remote chance that SD will become king as this could really be a huge boost to the iPhography movement