Buffalo Dualie dock hits Apple Store shelves

The Buffalo Dualie takes two of the most ubiquitous items around -- namely iPod and HDD docks -- and does the inevitable by splicing them into one device. You should already be familiar with it from our CES coverage, but just to refresh your memory this is a dual-purpose docking station, accepting hard drives and iDevices of most colors and creeds. It comes bundled with a swish-looking 500GB storage drive, and we hear Buffalo is pretty cheerful about satisfying Apple's stringent standards to make this an Apple Store exclusive. Yep, that means you can only buy this direct from Apple, but if you've already tasted the forbidden fruit once to get your iPod or iPhone, another bite shouldn't really hurt, should it?

[Certifiedfryguy Posted Jan 18th 2010 8:14AM]

Sexy but pricey

[QuiggityBiggity Posted Jan 18th 2010 8:39AM]

"if you've already tasted the forbidden fruit once to get your iPod or iPhone, another bite shouldn't really hurt, should it?"

HAHAHAHA

Clever and true

[rtdunham Posted Jan 18th 2010 10:53AM]

it'll be interesting to see how successful they are at accommodating "hard drives...of most colors and creeds," since the ports move all over the place on HDs.

My Western Digital Passport HD dock works with only one of the three or four 2.5-inch Passport HDs the company markets: one won't work because it's got a sliding port cover; another won't work 'cause it's got a rubbery fold-back port cover; another won't work 'cause it's a hair too thick (to accommodate triple interfaces) etc. If most of a single company's HDs don't work in its only dock for that line of HDs, I doubt the "colors and creeds" thing's gonna work, at least until there's some standardization on interface locations, and that seems...

Having said all that, kudos to WD for making a dock one of their drives works with. It's just a shame so many of its drives won't because of engineering differences incorporated into them when the dock was only a glint in an engineer's eye somewhere.

[kempcross Posted Jan 18th 2010 11:06AM]

@rtdunham It comes with a 500 GB drive and accepts "iDevices of most colors and creeds," meaning only a variety of ipods/iphones. I agree though, the sentence was confusingly written.

[rtdunham Posted Jan 18th 2010 12:16PM]

@kempcross
I went back tot the original engadget story from CES: it looks like you're right, that the dock only accepts either of two buffalo drives it can be ordered with.
But i think you do the writer a favor saying the sentence is just confusing. It's worse than that. It says:
"this is a dual-purpose docking station, accepting [italic]hard drives and iDevices[/italic] of most colors and creeds..."
I keep prodding engadget (and other blog) writers to [italic]write[/italic] better because if they don't, their technical expertise is wasted.

[phreenet Posted Jan 18th 2010 12:32PM]

I wonder how this combo will work on a MacBook Pro given that devices with built in USB hubs or devices that combo things like this don't usually work.

[Kantanax Posted Jan 18th 2010 3:18PM]

Damn; that external drive is ugly.
Apple is beginning to lose their taste.
Sadly, that is all they have.