ZoomIt Lets Your iPhone Read SD Cards

Gizmodo:

Remember all those clever iPhone peripherals that we were supposed to see with firmware 3.0? Well ZoomIt is among the first. It's an SD card reader for the iPhone and iPod touch.

Used in conjunction with the ZoomIt app, the dongle connects through the iPhone's dock connector to load photos, music and miscellaneous files (like PowerPoint, PDF and anything else supported by iPhone OS) from an SD card.

If nothing else, it's a handy way to extend your iPhone's storage in a pinch, or simply backup your photos on vacation without lugging around a laptop (which is my particular reason for excitement here). You can pre-order the ZoomIt for $50 now. It'll actually be available this April. [ZoomIt via iLounge]

This could be a great boon to photographers.  And potentially a good reason to consider a higher-capacity iPhone/iPod Touch/iPad. I suspect the iPad’s camera connector kit may also be compatible with the iPhone, but with ZoomIt, it doesn’t really matter.  (I still think it’s a mistake on Apple’s part not to include an SD card reader on the iPad.)

There are a number of trips I’ve been on where a combination of high-capacity storage and SD card upload would have allowed me to leave my laptop at home.  I just hope these readers do a better job than the camera card connector for the original iPod.  Using that almost made me lose a large number of photos on my trip to Alaska.  I’d wait for reviews to come out before buying one of these devices.