Back in March, we reviewed Mophie’s Space Pack storage case for the iPhone 5 and iPhone 5s. The case is both a battery pack that boosts the battery life of the iPhone as well as an external storage drive. Mophie has shipped variants that add 16GB and 32GB of storage to your iPhone, and today the company has announced a new 64GB version. That means with this case, you can technically have an iPhone that can store approximately 128GB of data. Data on the Space Pack is managed via a free Space app on the App Store. The app can store and access many types of files including songs, videos, and photos. The new 64GB model costs $249.95 and Mophie is quoting a ship date of July 22nd. As of now, pre-orders for the 64GB model are only available in the black color, while the lower-end versions are also available in white (shown above) and red finishes.
9to5Toys: As part of its 4-day Sale for the 4th of July, Best Buy offers the Mophie Juice Pack Helium iPhone 5/5s battery pack in silver for $39.99 with free shipping.
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At this point, why?
Maybe they are expecting iPhone 5S to go to 8GB like previous phones have when a new model comes out? This will be good for those people. Not sure how many that is or at what price point the 8GB model will be at, but this might be worth while.
If this thing had a lighting connector instead of an usb it’d be perfect
This is a really expensive way to use local storage. Consider the price of the iPhone itself. If you spent $199.00 on an iPhone 5s, you’ve already spent more on this case than the phone costs. Even if you bought it unlocked, you’ve spent 40% of the cost on a case. Yes, it does have some nice features, but wow.
Also, it makes a thin phone unforgivably thick. No way, no how.
KIND OF LATE TO THE PARTY
Pay 3.99 a month for 200GB of iCloud storage or pay 250 bucks for 64GB of local storage. It would take you 5 years for iCloud to cost this much and you get 3 times the storage.
… and when the power goes out you do what?
I agree it’s a steep price for local storage. I wonder how many people buy these thinking they can hold more apps.
does mophie think its Apple? Even Apple would think twice about charging $250 if they made a case like this (which they never would).
I’d be tempted to offload all of my music onto this (thereby freeing up almost 50% of my built-in storage) except that Apple doesn’t really support syncing external libraries with iTunes, playing them in the Music app, or using them with iTunes match. (Alternately I could use cloud storage for music, but this is clunky, battery-draining, and unreliable because it depends on network connectivity, which you may not always have when you need it.)
None of this is Mophie’s fault – Apple has really locked things down so that external storage is crippled in iOS. Most significantly, you can’t put apps on external storage, which is a huge bummer; the poor support for external music libraries with iTunes/Music app/iTunes match is the final nail in the coffin.
I expect we’ll be stuck with this lousy state of affairs until Apple decides to change its price discrimination and upselling strategy, which is currently based on flash storage capacity rather than other features. It’s a simple and effective system that has dumped billions of dollars into Apple’s coffers and ensured a steady stream of hardware and software releases, but it means that the iPhone is stuck at 64GB of fully-functional flash storage until Apple comes out with a 128GB model.
Is not a case with storage, its a BATTERY + Case + 64GB of Storage something Apple does NOT offer, $250 or for those with corporate discounts at AT&T or Verizon you pay less. I had the mophie 32GB version, but only returned it since I plan to get an iphone 6 and if it fails to deliver with 128GB option then I hope Mophie is quick to deliver their new version to support the iPhone 6.
I can’t wait to pick this up for 60% off on Groupon in a few months.