This is the world’s biggest and heaviest iPhone case. How big and heavy? Well, it’s chunky enough to stop any door in your home from closing, and heavy enough (2.1 kilos) to cause serious damage if hurled into an enemy’s face. In fact, the seller – Marudai – warns that “Serious injury and will certainly drop on top of the foot”. Ouch.
UPDATE: This post incorrectly stated that the SlingShot’s inventor, Charles Waugh, was also responsible for the AirClip iPhone grip. He is not.
It seems that there’s an almost infinite number of ways to stabilize your iPhone while taking photos and video, but possibly the most absurd – and at the same time extrmely practical – method so far is to drop it into this catapult-shaped tripod/slingshot.
I chuckled when I first saw it. And then I thought, “that’s actually pretty damn clever.”
Remember the MagnaDoodle? If you fall on my side of the Great Age Divide, then your answer will be an excited “yes!” The re-usable screen of the Magna Doodle was just about the closest thing that us 70s-born youngsters had to the touch-screen iPhone which you ungrateful kids enjoy today.
If you’re on the wrong side of the Great Age Divide, your answer will be all like “WTF old man you suck LOL.” To which I would respond with the following punishment: You will be forced to use this Magna Doodle for a week. Without the iPhone inside.
Want to download a trial version of Apple’s iWork apps? Tough. Apple just pulled them, replacing the page on its site with a notice sending you over to the App Store: “The trial version of iWork is no longer supported. But you can easily purchase Keynote, Pages, and Numbers from the Mac App Store to start creating beautiful presentations, documents, and spreadsheets today.”
Translation: Everything – and we mean everything, will be going through the App Store from now on.
I was a big fan of the Alupen when it launched — so much so that I went out and bought my own. It was chunky, looked like a metal pencil and felt pretty good in my big hands. Then came the Wacom Bamboo stylus and our love affair was over.
Now, though, the newer skinnier, cleverer Alupen Pro has got me two-timing the svelte Bamboo. Why? Because it has a biro built in.
[UPDATE: See the end of the post for a possible solution, which works for some people.]
Many iPad 3 users are experiencing a bug which kills their 3G connection every time they connect to a Wi-Fi network. The cellular connection looks normal, with the carrier name, the 3G logo and reception bars, but when you try to do anything that requires a connection, it either times out or throws the error messages “Could not activate cellular data network.”
I am having the exact same problem, and here’s what’s happening.
Oh man. I wasn’t going to write anything about the Comfe Hands iPad grip(s), as they just look too awkward and bulky to carry just to fit to the iPad when you need them. But then I accidentally scrolled down the page and saw the image you now see above this post. It is titled simply “pointer” and it epitomizes everything I love about stock photography and catalog photography in general.
Cyclists: Imagine that you could buy a speaker that combined the Bluetooth-connected, rubbery boxiness of JawBone’s JamBox speaker with the stretchy go-anywhere strap-and hook of Knog’s bike lights and cyclocomputers. Well, imagine no more, for a mere $70 will get you a SleekSpeak, a handlebar-mounted bike speaker over on Kickstarter.
Braven’s new Bluetooth speakers are like feature packed JamBoxes, only with a slightly more confusing product lineup. They are all marked by a great 12-20-hour battery life, can also be used to charge your USB-powered gadgets and — here’s the neat part — can be daisy-chained together using their 3.5mm audio-in and audio-out jacks.
You know what needs the AirClip? The iPad needs the AirClip. As it is, the finger-friendly grip is an accessory for the iPhone 4/S, and it actually looks pretty great. The AirClip is a clip-on grip that lets you shoot photos and videos one-handed.
The HandiZoom is an add-on camera grip that makes your SLR handle more like a camcorder. A really big, heavy camcorder. It is currently at the prototype stage, but looks like it could prove popular with one-man crews shooting documentary footage.
An iPad stand made from a pair of hammers, a screwdriver and some old coins and bolts. What could possibly go wrong? This amazing iPad stand was put together by Etsy makers Docks4iPods, and works just fine for the iPads 2 and 3. It will also take up more than its fair share of counter or desk space, and the screwdriver can be moved by loosening the wing-nuts and rotating it further back, letting you angle the iPad a little lower.
Rickshaw, the folks behind my favorite bag ever, has released a new biker-friendly reflective messenger bag which can be used to tote your 13-inch MacBook Air in addition to all your other junk. It is in fact a fancified version of the Zero Messenger I use every day.
Canon is serious about video. It’s 5D MkII was the go-to camera for low-budget indie filmmakers and professionals (like the creators of House) alike. Now, with rivals such as Nikon catching up, it has again leapt ahead. Say hello to the EOS-1D C, an SLR which can also shoot 4K video.
Paper, the ultra-simple app that turns your iPad into a piece of paper, has been downloaded 1.5 million times in just two weeks. What’s more, users have created seven million pages in that time. Not bad for an app that is distinguihed more by a lack of features than anything else.
Lonely Planet guides are a great way to make sure you spend your vacations sharing hotels and restaurants with cheap, filthy backpacking hippies. And now, in addition to various iPhone city guides, the company has just launched a range of country guides.
With all the retro photo-filtering apps in the App Store, it might seem redundant to take the time and effort to actually fire up Photoshop Touch and do the dirty work ourselves. But as it is a rainy April afternoon here at Cult of Mac’s Spanish HQ, I figured why not? After all, the whole point of this stuff is to have some fun, right?
So here we have it: How to make Instagrams the hard way.
8-bit pixel art is so last year. These days, all the cool kids and hipsters are into 1-bit photos. That’s right, one-bit. Now there’s an app that will render all your photographs as if they were taken on an old Nintendo Game Boy camera.
Got a little corner of your property that you’d like to keep a closer eye on? Or are you just concerned that the babysitter is not shaking your kids hard enough when they start acting up? Then what you need is the Dropcam HD, a Wi-Fi video camera designed for remote monitoring.
Still looking for an alternative to Instagram now that the Evil Empire has bought it up and is surely planning to suck it dry? There are a few options, including sticking with Instagram itself, but one alternative — Via.Me — has just added an Instagram import tool to make the transition as painless as possible.
httpvh://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=XwIeWfvcZ_o
Splashtop, the company behind various remote desktop apps for the iPad, has really outdone itself by porting the entire Windows 8 tablet Metro UI to the iPad. Kinda. While you can swipe away and use all of Windows 8’s gestures and even run your own Apps on there, you’ll need a Windows 8 PC to actually stream the apps to the iPad. In reality, it’s just like a virtual desktop app, only with its own native iPad interface.
If you’re approaching or have arrived at forty, and you had any kind of interest in skateboarding as a youngster, then I have some very exciting news for you, which I shall deliver in four words: Bones Brigade iPhone cases.
Apple’s iPhone and iPad docks suck. They look great, but they also grab onto your phone and won’t let go, they don’t fit if you use a case and they don’t do anything but charge the phone (yes, you can plug it into a stereo, but who does that?) The LIL KIKR, on the other hand, looks awesome, sounds awesome, and is made from tough, long-lasting aluminum.
Thomas Fulton’s Don’t Panic iPad case started life last year as a Kickstarter project. Now, after sending out cases to all his happy backers, the case is available for you and me to buy.
The case is made from floppy felt and leather, and is designed as much for using as it is for carrying and protecting. When closed, the felt closes up just like any other folio case. Open it up, though, and the fun starts.
Stolen phones could soon be a thing of the past thanks to a collaboration between the U.S government and the four biggest mobile carriers. The new scheme will use a central database of stolen handsets, and the carriers will use this to block their reactivation.
The idea is that it will reduce cellphone theft by making stolen phones virtually useless.