The Ukrainian folks behind the iblazr, a little four-LED accessory flash that plugs into an iDevice’s 3.5mm jack, have almost doubled their $50K Kickstarter goal and now offer something new: a diffuser, included free with the flash.
This is something we don’t see often enough: outside-the-box thinking applied to sports armbands for the iPhone. Digifit—an outfit we’ve covered before that makes fitness tracking devices and software—took the tired old bicep-hugging armband and slid it all the way down to the forearm; presto, no more yoga poses just to see your lap times.
Just like the Disney theme parks, the new Disney Animation iPad app is saddled with a heavy price for admission—but reveals a vast trove of wonder once inside.
For $14, the app makes an immense amount of material available—almost two gigs worth—from Disney’s digitally and traditionally animated titles.
It should be apparent by now that wires are an endangered species, what with the recent explosive popularity of Bluetooth for transmission of sound and data, and the growing ability to keep everything constantly synced with the cloud.
The lone holdout restraining the iPhone from breaking free is the charging cable—but even that’s on its way out. Case in point, Buqu Tech’s Magnetyze wireless charging case for the iPhone 5 is now available.
The British Isles aren’t generally known for exporting headphones; mega boy bands and cycling superstars, yes, and perhaps Marmite. But headphones? All that’s changing though, with the impact RHA has made over the past year or so. The outfit has thus far produced a series of home run hits (or batted sixes, if you’re a cricket fan) with inexpensive headphones with sound way above their price.
If their past successes are anything to go by, these new ‘phones from RHA should sound amazing—because they’re the company’s most expensive yet.
When we first took a look at Anchor back in June after it had just launched, the social platform for coworkers was a decidedly walled-off environment; just like Hotel California, you could check out any time you like—but you could never leave. At least, your ideas couldn’t.
But that’s changed today, as the app sees its first big update and adds integration with Evernote, and the ability to email outside of the platform.
For those whose income is based on billable time or on a per-project basis, some kind of time/project tracker app is a basic necessity. OfficeTime combines meat-and-potatoes time and project management with greatly customizable billing and reporting features, and is one of the few apps in this category available on all Apple devices—iPhone, iPad and Mac.
Quora is a motherlode of information and often sees top experts answer thoughtful questions posed by its users. Every once in a while, a superstar will step into answer—as Ashton Kutcher himself did, when someone asked “How did Ashton Kutcher prepare for his role as Steve Jobs in the new movie Jobs?”
Here’s a problem: Let’s say you’re a diabolical dictator bent on world domination. You’ve decided to bypass the corporate mass media (which can’t be trusted) and inform the little people of your plans via podcast. You create one—only you don’t have a method of broadcasting the podcast, since you insist on personally playing your message directly onto the iDevices of your soon-to-be thralls.
The answer, of course, is the world-domination tool TuneMob. As long as you can gather everyone in the world into the same room. And by everyone, I mean a maximum of seven people. Who all need to be running TuneMob. And have fairly newish iDevices.
Two dazzling innovations we’re pretty enthused about have melded, as Flowboard becomes one of the first apps to integrate Leap Motion into its Mac platform.
Zensorium’s Tinke is one of those gadgets that’s a little off the beaten path. Like many fitness gadgets, it can measure heart rate. What makes it different is that it’ll also measure blood oxygen levels and respiratory rate — and what it does with that data is even more unusual.
The HOT Watch, from Texas-based PH Technical Labs, is the latest project to join the ever-burgeoning smartwatch craze, and it busted out onto Kickstarter today with such a bang it’s already raised half its $150K goal.
There’s really a lot going on here — the device packs a near-endless list of features — but there’s really one trick that stands out above the rest.
The BoostTurbine 4000 sounds like something out of a surreal Bizarro world where technophiles are simultaneously Luddites.
It’s a battery brick that Eton stuck a hand crank onto; should the 4000 mAh battery ever run dry, a minute of cranking will bring an iPhone flickering back to life with enough juice for a a quick distress call or a few texts.
Autodesk has a rich history of offering stunning, free iOS apps that do some pretty spectacular things. Their latest app, Homestyler, lets you virtually redecorate your house with remarkable detail.
It was a bit of an odd moment when Incase — which up to that point almost exclusively focused on bags and cases — announced a couple of years ago that they’d started making headphones. Even more surprising was that the headphones really, really rocked.
Of the four models, the best deal was probably the second-most expensive of the bunch, the on-the-ear Reflex: velvety looks, a rugged build and sound quality that many gadget sites, including us, thought beat out headphones twice as expensive.
Still, the Reflex didn’t generate as much buzz as perhaps they should have, and at $90 they were one of the most underrated headphones on the market; then Incase cut the price to $60.
And now they’re on sale at $30, which makes them, well, completely irresistible.
You know how camping is all about roughing it and rusticity? Forget it. Goal Zero teamed up with Eddie Bauer to design a solar-powered tent.
As apparent through the company’s tagline “musicians first,” IK Multimedia generally makes stuff for musicians; but their new iKlip iPad stand should also fit a ton of scenarios that have absolutely nothing to do with music.
The stand combines a wide-stance, stable, metal-reinforced base with a tall neck that ends in a frame that an iPad slides into. There are two adjustable points, both of which lock: an elbow in the middle of the neck, and a ball pivot where the neck meets the iPad frame.
This is absolutely one of the most striking cases we’ve seen. Adopted have taken their distinct embedded-leather-in-metal Leather Wrap case and tweaked it, substituting the leather for a soft, puffy silicone material; the result is the Cushion Wrap case, which looks like a tiny upholstered bed.
That’s right, $50 nabs you the Anker Astro 3, an external battery with three USB ports and 12,000 mAh, which is — in theory — enough juice to completely charge any iPad.
Why the in theory disclaimer? Because although the Astro 3’s 12,000 mAh capacity exceeds the 11,560 mAh capacity of the battery in the two latest iPads (the iPad 2’s battery is about half that of its successors), there’s always some energy loss when transferring energy from one battery to another.
This post contains affiliate links. Cult of Mac may earn a commission when you use our links to buy items.
AOC’s new USB-powered, 16-inch LCD display may be a godsend for travelers who occasionally need a little extra MacBook screen real estate.
The AOC screen plugs into a USB 3 port (and only a USB 3 port), and just like any other external monitor can either mirror or augment a MacBook’s screen. The screen’s resolution is 1366×768, which covers an area of 15.6 inches — not quite the resolution of the standard 15″ MBP’s screen, but not that far off.
We were impressed enough with Tile’s unique take on the Bluetooth-enabled tracking device to realize that its little gizmo was going to take off like a Saturn V rocket.
Indeed, Tile has now become the most successful Selfstarter campaign by blowing past Lockitron, who created the open-source crowdfunding alternative after their smartphone-connected door lock was rejected by Kickstarter.
Gather up a substantial clump of geeks in any one place and you’re bound to get some interesting concoctions. In this case, two Comic Con pilgrims have taken a certain favored S-themed superhero and combined it with a certain favored S-themed smartphone. Behold, the Superphone.
Panasonic’s new Lumix DMC-FZ70 flaunts a nonsensical 60x optical zoom range, completely unaided through the use of Viagra.
UpTo might be the best social calendar app ever made. I’ve never really seen anything like it; so if it isn’t the best (or really the only) social calendar app around, whatever else is out there must be perfect — because UpTo is pretty damn fantastic.
The whole point of UpTo is to create a social experience around calendars, in a way that’s at once instantly recognizable and ridiculously simple to use.
Reaction to this ruggedized, clamshell Bluetooth keyboard case for the iPad mini must surely qualify as a “what the…?!” moment. Not because the New Trent Airbender Mini is ruggedized, and a keyboard, and a case, and a stand; but because it combines each of those sought-after elements for $40.
“What the…?!”
