Believe it or not, Black Friday has already come and gone. Pretty soon the Christmas season will begin, and we’ll mark this midwinter festival by getting together with friends and family and continuing to drink and eat far too much.
Meanwhile, we also buy gifts for those same friends and family members, whether they want them or not. Luckily, we’re here to help, and if you follow our festive advice, your gifts just might make it into the “wanted” category.
From now until Christmas, Cult of Mac will be putting together holiday gift guys full of ideas for the special ones in your life, no matter what their interests or your budget. Today, we’re looking at gifts for the good gentleman in your life.
Mujjo Leather Touchscreen Gloves — $170
Not cheap, but then neither is the iPhone they’ll be used on. And anyway, what price can you put on love, and the fact that it’s a lot easier to love with warm and toasty fingers, if you catch my drift…
Anyway, these classy leather gloves let your special finger power through to be detected by capacitive touch screens, just like the wooly ones, only they’re not cheap wool.
Quirky Gadget Toast Rack — $25
Words that have never been spoken by a person frustrated by their messy desk: “I wish I had a toast-rack-shaped object in which to stack my various desktop items.” Which is what makes this the perfect gift: like the Spanish Inquisition, nobody will be expecting it.
The weighty aluminum base keeps the non-scratch plastic toast slots in place, and it’s good for paper books as well as iPhones.
Studio Credence iPhone Case — $34
High class at a low price, the $34 Studio Credence are impossible to believe (see what I did there?).
These merino wool felt cases with leather pockets will outlast the iPhone 5 within, and will get better with age, like Burt Reynolds (only a little less leathery).
iGrill Meat Thermometer — $80
There’s nothing a man likes more than to grab his meat in one hand and his iPhone in the other, fire up an app and wait for things to get hot. So if you don’t want your feller to lock himself in the bathroom in order to run through this scenario, then you might consider the iGrill, a remote control probe thermometer which connects to his iPhone via Bluetooth.
Thus, he can put roast in the oven and settle down to a game of Angry Birds Star Wars, safe in the knowledge that the iGrill will ping him just when his meat is done.
Slope iPad Foot — $65.
The name is terrible, but the product is sweet. If you ever saw the foot and support of an iMac and liked it, then you’ll love the Slope: it’s the same thing, only for an iPad (or other tablet). Here’s the description of the aluminum bracket:
hand buffed, glass bead blasted, hard anodized and sealed.
A description that could equally be applied to its hot designer, Eric (watch the video and try to keep your ovaries from overheating).
The Slope also has “Nanofoam pads” affixed to the base and to the front surface to do the gripping.
Lomo Belair — $320.
Your man could really make some fresh prints with this Lomo Belair (sorry). It’s a medium-format film camera with all the retro-styling anyone could ever need, with manual focus, manual winder and manual everything else. Even the bellows needs to be extended by hand.
Cheap? No. Low quality Lomo-tastic? Almost certainly.
Mighty Dwarf Window Speaker — $100.
The Mighty Dwarf is a speaker driver that uses a window, tabletop or other flat surface to move the air and create the sound. It’s gimmicky, yes, but if your better half spends a lot of time having parties in hotel rooms [^fn-hookers] then it could be the ideal balance of small and loud.
iPad Pinball Console — $60
iPad. Pinball. What else is there to say? If you prefer the blooping, beeping, clattering sounds of a pinball table over the voice of your beloved droning on about, well, anything, you should buy this. It’s almost guaranteed to shut him up for all of Christmas day.
Field Notes Archival Wooden Case — $35.
If your beau has a stationery fetish, then this is just about the best thing to buy him this side of a Mont Blanc pen. Bonus: The “American 5-ply, cabinet-grade birch” box (with lid) will easily be the biggest gift under the tree, and it only costs $35. That makes you a smart, smart gift-giver.
Waterfield Indy iPad Bag — $169.
Da da da da, da da Dah! Da da da da, da da da DA, DAH!
Which boy doesn’t want to be Indiana Jones? The girls, the whip, the really, really big ball, The tiny (yet sassy) Asian companion. The fear of snakes… Wait. That’s not what I meant…
Still, you can avoid the weirder side of your man’s Indy fetish with the Indy bag, a leather satchel from the folks at Waterfield Designs. It comes sized for the regular iPad or the mini, and you can pick the accent color to match his eyes.
Evernote Smart Journal — $25-$30.
With the Evernote Smart Journal, your boyfriend will never ever again forget to remember the milk. Using the scanner-friendly pages combined with his $700 iPhone, he can write down a shopping list, photograph it using the Evernote app, and enjoy the fast, fast OCR of his handwriting (not to mention the offline storage of his Evernote notes) courtesy of the included three-month Premium Evernote subscription.
Available in large or small.
XTable Convertible Standing Desk — $?
Up, down. Up, down. A twist of the wrist, and up, down. This is the sweaty rhythm of your man cranking his brand new XTable on Xmas morn. The desk can be used whilst sitting or standing, and requires a moment of contemplative effort every time it is changed. The only thing that might stick is the price — you need to contact the manufacturers if you want to know that little secret.
Rickshaw Velo Backpack — $150
Rickshaw makes some of the best bags around. I have had one of them for years, and — with the occasional spin in the washing machine — it looks and works like new. And speaking of new, here’s the Velo, a new addition to the lineup. Waterproof sailcloth and seatbelt shoulder straps means it is light and comfortable (just 1.5 pounds).
It’s made for cyclists, and has mounts for lights, as well as optional inserts for your MacBook or other gadgets. Yeah, it’s $150, but seriously — it will last longer than your relationship.
[^fn-hookers]: You should probably check for hookers. Just sayin’.
