Bryan J. Ball

There are hundreds of decent iPad cases out there. Unfortunately, very few leave you room for anything other than the iPad itself. What about your stand, your wireless keyboard, your charger or your headphones? Carrying all the accoutrements needed to set your iPad up and use it more like a notebook may seem to defeat the purpose somewhat, but a lot of us use our tablets like that every day. If you like to carry your iPad fully loaded, the Incase Travel Kit Plus ($59.95) is a great solution.

If you’re a rugged, outdoorsy type — or just really careless — you’ve undoubtedly been looking for the toughest case ever for the iPhone 4.

OtterBox has been the go-to company for this sort of iPhone protection. And while it’s taken them some time to come up with something for the iPhone 4, the company has finally released something in its tough-as-nails Defender line.

OtterBox offers three levels of case protection. There’s the Impact, which is designed for everyday casual protection; the Commuter, for people who are looking for a little more; and the bulk-be-damned Defender series, for those who want the absolute most protection money can buy.

How does it measure up?

Unfortunately, Second Life definitely ain’t what she used to be. There have been more than a few headline-grabbing scandals in recent years, user numbers have fallen off a bit and the newest official Linden Labs viewer software hasn’t exactly gotten rave reviews.

However, there is still a very large and very loyal SL contingent that is eager to access their digitized world wherever and whenever they can. Those people have been begging and pleading for a reliable Second Life viewer for the iPhone since day one. Those same people really began clamoring for something more mobile when the iPad came on the scene.

Pocket Metaverse Pro ($2.99) is just that app. With versions for the iPad and iPhone (and free versions to boot), Pocket Metaverse is more than adequate for accessing Second Life and other similar Open Grid virtual worlds while on the go.

There are several excellent iPhone apps available for cyclists. Abvio’s entrant into this category is called Cyclemeter, which turns your iPhone into a GPS-based cycling computer. The $4.99 app has been updated to allow multitasking and full iOS 4 integration.

In many ways, Cyclemeter is pretty similar to other apps such as B.iCycle or iMapMyRide. It offers full integration with Google maps and iCal. You can control your iPod from within the app. It can save your routes and post rides to your Twitter or Facebook accounts. And it will produce some pretty impressive charts and graphs to help analyze your performance. Battery consumption is also on par with that of other cycling apps.

Who knows what’s going to come out of the Cupertino presser tomorrow regarding the iPhone 4 and its Death Grip “issue”. We don’t even know who will be saying yet. However, my guess is that it will be his Steveness and he’ll be saying something along one of these lines.