(You're reading all posts by Charlie Sorrel)
About Charlie Sorrel
Charlie Sorrel sits in his gadget nerve-center in Barcelona, Spain, and spits out words about various weird plastic widgets while the sun shines outside his iCave. Previously found at Wired.com's Gadget Lab covering cameras, power cables and sneaking in as much Apple-centric coverage as he could, Charlie spends his rare moments outside perched atop a bicycle and snapping photos. You can follow him on Twitter via @mistercharlie(sorry, you need Javascript to see this e-mail address)
Bluetooth Remote For Your iPhone Isn’t As Dumb As It Seems
Don't laugh: This iPhone remote is actually really useful
I scoffed whan I first saw the PR e-mail for this Bluetooth iOS remote. Literally: I made a weird, half-snoring, half LOL-ing noise into my coffee. If that doesn’t count as a "scoff," I don’t know what does.
Anyhow, after my initial (and messy) reaction, I quickly changed my mind. This thing packs in so many useful funcions, and does it in such a (fairly) handsome package that now I’m considering buying one.
Gizmon’s Clip-On Lenses Bring a Polarizer To The iPhone
Gizmon's Clip-On Lenses are lenses which clip on
Not only do Gizmon’s Clip-On Lenses offer a smart and speedy way to mount them on your iPhone, but they also break with the now-common fisheye-telephoto-wideangle triumvirate (mostly at least), instead coming in fisheye, polarizer and "3-image mirage filter" flavors. Better still, they will also play just fine with your iPad 2 or 3.
Tivoli PAL And Model One Radios Finally Arrive In 2012
The PAL Bluetooth speaker is also a radio. A Radio! In 2012!
Tivoli, maker of fine old-fashioned radios with new-fashioned guts, has finally got with the game and added Bluetooth to its classic Model One and PAL lines. So now, in addition to beautiful, warm-sounding (mono) radio and music piped in over the wire, you can also hijack grandma’s favorite program wirelessly.
Why I Still Use A Ten-Year Old Sony Ericsson P900 [Review]
The P900 Isn't so much big as fat -- seen here with an iPod Touch
Take one look at my cellphone and you’ll either laugh at me, pity me or envy me. It’s a Sony Ericsson P900, a brick of a smartphone introduced in 2003, and I got it when my P800 was stolen from my bag in London’s Soho (at that time, Orange in the UK gave you free insurance for your phones — go figure).
And after a few years of struggling with various dumbphones and the execrable Samsung Behold, I’m back to the P900 and I love it. Why? Because it was designed to be used like the iPhone, not crippled by carriers like everything else these days.
Smart Fujifilm Adapter Mounts Leica Lenses On X-Pro Bodies
This little slip of a thing will put the world's best lenses on your Fujifilm X-Pro 1
Apologies in advance for yet another camera adapter post, but this one — as you’ll see — is a biggie: The Fujifilm M-Mount adapter. But first, a short bit of history.
Widget Mounts Any Flash On Sony’s Customer-Hostile Accessory Shoe
$80 to get a feature the usually comes for free
Sony has long had an inexplicable love affair with proprietary connectors, accessories, anything. From Memory Sticks to ATRAC Minidiscs to annoying headphone sockets on phones, Sony’s philosophy seems to be "if you can piss off a customer, why not do it?"
And so it is with the NEX mirrorless cameras. Excellent devices in almost every way, unless you want to use a flash, in which case you have to spring for one of Sony’s own specialty units. Still, this customer hatred is at least good news for third-party accessory makers, and NEX Proshop will now sell you an adapter that adds a proper hot-shoe and PC socket to your NEX camera.
CheatSheet Shows Mac Keyboard Shortcuts At The Press Of A Button
All your shortcuts at the tap of a button
You know how in many Google web apps you can just press CMD-? to bring up an overlay containing all the keyboard shortcuts available? (you did know that, right?) Well, now you can do the same with any app on your Mac using the sweet and simple CheatSheet, a free app with this one single purpose.
Why Instapaper Never Switches Off While You’re Reading, And Other Friendly Tricks
Instapaper is packed with user-friendly niceties
Ever notice that Instapaper never seems to switch off your iPad or iPhone’s display while you’re reading, no matter how long you get distracted while reading, nor how slowly you read a page, whereas iBooks and Kindle regularly go dark if you don’t keep up a good pace? No? That’s because you’re not supposed to, even though Instapaper developer Marco Arment spend quite a lot of effort tweaking the app to do it.
Cuckoo Smart Watch Is Smarter Than Most [Kickstarter]
Cuckoo works with your iPhone and lasts for a year on a single button cell
The Pebble watch is pretty neat and all ($10 million can’t all be totally wrong), but even with e-ink and low-powered Bluetooth it still needs charging way more than a regular watch. It’s also rather plasticky and dorky-looking.
The Cuckoo might not be able to fix the second part, looking as it does like a rather dull take on a Swatch, but it can certainly fix the first.
GreatShield’s VIES iPad Sleeve: Light, Thin, Tough — Pick Three [Review]
Thin and tough, like Carla from Cheers
Protection doesn’t have to be bulky. Think of an cardboard egg box: barely bigger than the eggs it contains, but tough enough to stop its precious cargo from breaking even when stacked up on shelves in a supermarket, or when (presumably) mis-treated by that same supermarket’s delivery drivers.
So it is with Greatshield’s VIES case, a zip-up slip cover that is slim, weighs next to nothing and yet offers a decent amount of protections for your iPad 1, 2 or 3.
