I tend to travel a fair bit, and when I’m not flopping down on friends’ couches (which happens more than I should probably admit — thanks guys), I often turn to Bill Shatner’s pugnacious figure and punch it, firing up the Priceline app to find a killer deal. And now that it’s a universal app, it’s even better on the iPad.
Presumably for those without an iPhone and its wealth of app-based fitness options, iHome has partnered with New Balance to offer a set of earphones packed with workout features, including a pedometer and a heart-rate monitor.
Pioneer has just launched its own versions of an AirPlay-equipped system, and they’re characteristically bigger and badder than the rest of the crowd.
The problem with battery cases is that they’re so big. Wrapping one around the iPhone 4 turns it from slim-and-sleek into a thick brick of a phone; and if you wanted fat and ugly, heck, you would have bought an Android phone.
But the PhoneSuit Elite iPhone 4 battery case ($80) changes everything. It’s the first case I’ve really felt comfortable carrying around in a jeans pocket, and it’s powerful and fast to boot.
Seagate’s new, largest-in-the-world GoFlex Desk external hard drive ($250) weighs in at a strapping four terabytes. I know, that’s only one terabyte more than their next biggest desktop drive; but that’s enough storage space for 30.3 million more press images like the ones above; 833,333 more GoFlex user guides; or 2,272 more videos of me trying to duct tape some gadget to my forehead in a hilariously misguided attempt to gain interesting yet incredibly useless data about something or other.
Let’s face it: If you have an iPhone 4, you need a battery case. Unless all you’re doing with your iPhone is using it as a $600 mirror.
Luckily there’s no shortage of choice — so we’ve assembled a collection of promising candidates and put them through their paces, the results of which we’ll be revealing in the next few days.
First up is the XtremeMac InCharge Mobile ($80), selected from XtremeMac’s deep line of charging solutions (all of which have been given the “InCharge” moniker).
I’ve worked at a few desks that used Cisco VoIP phones (one in the Wired.com offices among them); but something like the new Invoxia NVX 610 iPhone-controlled conference phone may eventually turn conventional handsets — even VoIP ones — into relics.
They’re running through the entire playbook over at Pogoplug for a touchdown (yeah, guess I’m jonesing for the football season to start). Their latest move is the Pogoplug Mobile ($80), out today.
Everyone seems to want some AirPlay action. The newest dock to crash onto the stage is this AirPlay-equipped, sleek-looking monolith from iHome, the iW1 ($300).
The iPad makes an almost perfect portable media player; big, bright screen, great interface and a speedy processor. Wahay. Problem is, it’s hard to jam a decent speaker, let alone two, into that svelte aluminum shell — the result is sound from anemic speaker with volume that won’t top a moderately loud tea party.
Luckily there’s no shortage of auxiliary speakers available, and Logitech’s Tablet Speaker for iPad ($50) is one of the simplest, least expensive and most portable.
Ironically, the Jawbone Icon HD and Nerd package ($140) seems designed for the anti-nerd; those who have trouble adjusting BT settings on a computer and end up erasing the entire hard drive and setting the house on fire when they try.
Like many other connected security cams on the market, Stem Innovation’s new iZon ($130) touts an easy, all-in-one package that lets you monitor your home from the web or an iDevice through its app — but with with apparently less frills, and at less expense.
That’s what the developer NetDragon is trumpeting about Conquer Online — a MMORPG already playable on the Mac, PC — when it arrives on the iPad. When? “In the coming weeks.”
It’s finally here — for U.S.-based developers, anyway. iTunes Match, Apple’s upcoming new service that takes your iTunes library and mirrors it in Apple’s cloud so it can be streamed has just dropped in Beta form.
The iPad’s screen apparently wasn’t designed to be sullied with anything other than human fingers. there’s an oft-refferred to quote from Steve Jobs saying as much: “If you see a stylus, they blew it,” referring to other touch-screen designs that rely on the stylus.
But we don’t always use Apple’s gadgets the way Apple intends. Most of the time, sure, we stick to the script, because the damn things are so well designed that any deviance ends up as a fool’s adventure. Using an iPad with a stylus, however, isn’t foolish. Whether or not you use one — to scrawl notes, draw, paint, as a way of circumventing long fingernails or just ’cause you like it that way — styli (or styluses, depending on your preference) are here to stay. Here’s a by-no-means-exhaustive showdown between a few picked off from the herd. All these styli are, of course, capacitive, which means they conduct bio-electricity from your hand, down the shaft and onto the screen.
For those in the NYC area, staying on top of Hurricane Irene-related developments on an iDevice just became a little easier as the two major NYC newspapers, the New York Times and Long Island’s Newsday, have dropped their paywalls for Irene-related news.
I can only imagine the whimsical hilarity resulting from one of these being installed on a White House staffer’s iPhone: iSpeech Obama — or its somewhat late sister app, iSpeech Bush — are a pair of apps that allow you to enter speech and play it back in the voice of Presidents Barack Obama or George Bush.
In all the hubbub with HP killing the TouchPad and spinning off its PC division, one might forget that HP still has a strong connection with Apple: They’re the only printer manufacturer with printers that fully integrate prinitng from iOS, thanks to HP’s inclusion of AirPrint on many of its printers.
The HP Officejet 6500A Plus ($200), with its all-in-one features, automatic document feeder, wifi connectivity and removable duplexer for double-sided printing, is already an attractively spec’d printer. Toss in AirPrint capability and you’ve got a strong contender to fill any iDevice-toting home/small office manager’s priniting needs.
I can only guess how much explosive glee AutoDesk Motion FX — a new free app from AutoDesk, the developer behind AutoCAD and the SketchBook line of apps — would have engendered in me as a little kid, because I fostered a deep yearning to run around with a flaming hand or fire leaping from the top my head like some Ghost Rider clone. Good thing my parents kept me well away from matches and gasoline.
I’d really rather have my wallet in my iPhone — ie, the virtual version — rather than the other way around, but I guess we’re not quite there yet (and I can’t help but feel that with Steve semi-gone, we’ll take longer to get there). In the meantime, Hex’s Code Wallet for iPhone 4 offers a more conventional approach that carries all your stuff — including your iPhone — in a foldable leather case.
A big advantage of these Four-Thirds cameras is that you gain the ability to swap lenses like you can with an SLR — but in a much smaller, lighter and generally more portable package. Olympus says their new PEN E-PM1 is their most portable yet.
We all knew this day would come — but not so soon. My reaction was a sudden exclamation of “holy crap” after seeing the USA Today headline pop up on my iPad while on a conference call.
Apple stock plummeted during after-hours trading today after Steve Jobs announced his resignation.
Trading was frozen at $376.18 a share for Apple, before the Steve Jobs announced his resignation after the closing bell struck on Wall Street today. Shares tumbled after news of Jobs’s resignation, and had already fallen over five percent, or $19, by 5 P.M. PDT.
Apple shares were up a half percent from opening before the news. How far they fall before morning should give some indication of how much the public believes Steve=Apple. Follow the shares here.
I’ve been yearning for someone to get this right ever since I wrapped my hands around an iPad 2: the perfect marriage of Smart Cover and back protection for the iPad. Damned if Griffin hasn’t just nailed it with their new IntelliCase ($60).
Somewhere, as Wagner’s Flight of the Valkyries is playing n the background, squadrons of Parrot AR Drones face off against Griffin’s new Helo TC somewhere over the Atlantic (since Parrot is based in France and Griffin in Tennessee, I figured that’s where they’d probably meet up).
