We like Moshi’s Verso covers, which fold – origami-like – into a variety of handy stands. And we (actually probably just me – nobody else here uses one) love the InCase Origami, which covers the Apple aluminum keyboard with a case that folds out into an iPad stand.
So how could I resist Moshi’s VersaKeyboard, which kind of does both?
These new flexible wooden sleeves from Grovemade are amazing. Look at them. Just look.
They’re made from veneers of maple or walnut, lined with felted wool and have leather and brass straps to pull out the MacBook or iPad within in one easy yank.
At just $15, I wouldn’t be surprised if the Amzer Shellster fell apart after a couple of weeks, but what a couple of weeks that would be. The iPhone 5 case comes in pretty much any too-bright color you can think of, and features an integrated clip and kickstand.
Logitech’s new Hinge is an iPad case with – what do you think? Yup, a hinge. To be honest, it’s really no different from all the other cases that have a vertical crease in the back so that the front flap can fold away and around to make a multi-angle stand, but the Hinge looks better than most of them while it does it.
This week we look at docking stations for the MacBook. Docks let you stow your laptop out of the way. With its lid closed, and yet still use its brain to power a monitor and hook up to a mouse and keyboard.
Some docks are simple dumb stands, others offer hookups that the modern MacBook lacks, like HDMI and Ethernet ports.
Let’s take a look at three of the best.
Straight outta Leipzig comes the latest update to Soulmen’s Ulysses III, the writers’ text editor for the Mac. As ever with Soulmen updates, the fact that this is a “mere” point update shouldn’t fool you. Ulysses III 1.2 is the kind of thing many folks would ship as a v2.0.
You know what time of year it is? Spring. And you know what kind of product is perfect to launch in your store during spring? According to the folks at Reign23 who sent me the PR email, the perfect spring accessory is gloves. Warm, hand-toasting gloves.
Or rather, a dab-on liquid which turns any gloves into touchscreen-friendly gloves.
I kinda like the little Modulo. It’s a set of battery packs for charging your gadgets, with the gimmick that they are stackable and work on concert, letting your tune the weight/power ratio depending on which gadgets you’re using, and how long you’ll be away from mains power.
They also look cool, like little game carts from the 1980s.
Remember the Slate Mobile AirDesk, which I described as resembling a “neatly-drilled chopping board”? Did you look at it and think “I like that. I could see myself using one of those, if only it was a little smaller, so I could carry it in my bag.”
If the answer to either of these is yes (or to the second question, mostly), then you will be ecstatic at the news of the SlateGo, a slightly smaller version of the laptop lap-desk.
You know the old saying: “Give a man a router, and he’ll turn a piece of wood into a perfectly-designed desk for the iPad-toting Mac user”?
Or was it “Give a man a router and he’ll set up a wireless network in your home office”?
No, wait, it was “Offer a man a router, and he’ll be forced to infer from context which device you mean to give him.”
Anyway, it’s a good saying, and it might apply to Artifox’s Desk 01, a desk which is equal parts beautiful and functional.
The Mobile Home is a one-thing-well kind of product. It connects to your iPhone via Bluetooth and lets you trigger Siri remotely. Which brings me to that excellent name – this is literally a mobile home button.
This is Leica’s new T, a camera with just a few buttons, and which is milled from a solid block of aluminum. Sound familiar? Hell, it even comes with a Smart Cover.
Specs-wise, this thing looks great, with Wi-Fi and a very clever way to add GPS. But I do worry about that lack of buttons.
PaperSync is a more appealing version of the Mod Notebooks service. Like Mod, PaperSync scans your paper pages and turns them into digital files. Unlike Mod, PaperSync uses plain old PDFs, and works with any notebook you like, not just the special Mod notebook.
Prong’s PWR promises to provide your phone with power, preventing all problems. It’s a slim-ish case with a built-in battery along with a pair of flip-out power prongs that can be thrust directly into a wall outlet.
Remember when the coolest brag for a gadget was that it was “credit card size”? Those times are back. The Revi Charger is a credit card-size iPhone charger with a built-in backup battery, and could really be just the thing in an emergency.
I’m going to ask you to do something dirty, but it’ll be totally worth it. But before we get to that, let me tell you what this is about. Project Naptha is a browser extension that lets you copy and paste text from images. That’s right. Those times when some helpful web designer puts all the relevant info into a JPG need no longer drive you into an impotent rage.
The catch? It’s Google Chrome only for now.
Each week we pull the best Apple-related gadgets from the Cult of Mac and collect them here for your perusing pleasure.
I keep a movie to-watch list, a plain text list somewhere in my Dropbox. And as you may have guessed, I never read it. What I probably need is an app like Moviedo, a to-do list for movies that runs on your iPhone.
The iOS Kindle app just got an update, and it’s a good one. The left sidebar that you can summon while reading now has direct access to the table of contents, and you can access X-Ray info just by tapping on a word.
Remember the Elevation Dock? Yeah, me too. The Kickstarter took so long to ship that everybody who’d ordered one had upgraded to the iPhone 5 by the time the dock shipped, so they needed adapters to make them fit their new phones.
Still, that won’t happen with the new Elevation Stand, which is a simple $100 aluminum brick that adds a few inches to the height of your iMac.
Barely two months after I bought the original, Logitech has updated the Ultrathin Keyboard Cover for iPad, with matching new models for the iPads Air and Mini. The Bluetooth keyboards still work as covers and stands for your iPad, but now they also hold the iPad at an adjustable angle, and have a hidden hinge that pops out when your need it.
Lytro’s new Illum field Camera is the first of its products you’ll want to buy. The original Lytro Field Camera was a nice proof of concept, but the low resolution images were pretty crappy, and the unit itself was one of the least ergonomic camera designs I’ve ever seen.
The Illum still has some ergonomics issues, but promises much better pictures.
Apple has released security patches to fix the Heartbleed bug on AirPort base stations, and SSL-based security updates for Apple TVs and Macs.
You should probably go and update all of them as soon as possible.
Summer’s (nearly) here! And that means we are forced outside to use our devices in places that remain inhospitable to our iPhones and iPads.
The Incipio Atlas ID is a slimline waterproof iPhone case that lets you keep using the iPhone 5s’ Touch ID scanner, even while it’s in the case.
CloudConvert, the web-app that lets you convert almost any file format to any other file format, now comes as an iOS app. It still uses CloudConvert’s great web service as its engine, but adds a native iOS interface.
You know what that means? It means you can send any file to CloudConvert using the standards iOS “Open In…” dialog. Got a Word DOCX file in your webmail and need to send it to someone else as a PDF? No problem.