Apple empire strikes again.

armchair_warrior

We wish that we could say this is shocking news, but when it comes to Apple's rabid defense of its products, it's par for the course. According to 9 to 5 Mac, Apple has forced PhotoFast to cease production of its SSD upgrade for the latest MacBook Airs. In fact, the product page for the SSD has also been taken down.

9 to 5 Mac reports that PhotoFast is a member of Apple's MFi licensing program which allows it to make accessories for Apple products. Apparently, Apple threatened to give PhotoFast the boot from the program if they didn't comply with its request.

What makes Apple's move even more strange is that the PhotoFast SSD upgrade -- like the Toshiba SSD that comes in all of the new MacBook Airs -- uses the industry standard mSATA connector and not a proprietary Apple connector (like the 30-pin dock connector found on iOS devices).

The PhotoFast GM2 SFV1 Air makes use of the SandForce SF-1200 controller and offers maximum read speeds of 250MB/sec. It was to be made available in 64GB, 128GB, and 256GB capacities. The company also made the ingenious move of including a USB 3.0 thumb drive "shell" so that customers wouldn't be wasting the stock SSD once removed from their machines.

http://www.dailytech.com/Apple+Brings+Down+Ban+Hammer+on+PhotoFast+SSDs+for+MacBook+Air/article20274.htm