So the card and driver are finally getting close though it seems it will only initially work with the Zire 71. Aside from how ridiculous this is that it’s not even the latest Zire, the driver won’t work on any other OS 5 device until Palm One steps up and provides the appropriate assistance as each model has different requirement. For some strange reason this help is either lacking or inadequate. Seems PalmOne wants to be the one to bring WiFi to units with Bluetooth itself… though this has yet to materialize.
Even if the card was $150 without additional memory, I bet it would be a good seller. There are some hungry Palm users out there with Treos, T3s and Zires all looking to get this.
SanDisk would like to make this card compatible with other palmOne models, but it isn’t getting the co-operation it needs. The Zire 72 and Tungsten T3 need to have a system patch applied before their SD slots can use this card. According to SanDisk, palmOne won’t publicly release this. Instead, the patch will be built into the driver that palmOne will release with its Wi-Fi SD card, which is expected to be available soon. This patch isn’t something SanDisk can develop itself, which means that the only option for Wi-Fi SD cards for the Zire 72 and Tungsten T3 is the one palmOne itself will sell.
SanDisk promises to try to make versions of all of its SD products compatible with as many palmOne products as possible. However, it says the lack of support from palmOne makes this difficult. SanDisk can’t release its SD card that combines Wi-Fi and 256 MB of storage without further assistance from palmOne. [Brighthand]