Reviews - page 134

Sure, the 32GB iPad has enough storage space for a bunch of apps, some songs and maybe even a movie or two. But for those of us with large media collections, even the mega 64GB version will start to feel a little cramped when stuffed full of music and videos (and I have no idea how those of you with 16GB iPads get by).

So, what if you could just stick a portable external drive into your iPad, like you would with a MacBook? Bam, extra storage! Well, yeah — but you can’t, right? Wrong! Well, sorta — you can’t plug one in physically; but the 500GB Seagate GoFlex Satellite ($200) gets around the whole physical connection thing by supplying its own wifi hotspot that lets you create a wifi link between it and your iPad. Genius.

One of the biggest customer complaints about the iPhone 4S is battery life. The battery never manages to last even a whole day and sometimes not even a half of a day. Although the iPhone 4 has always managed to last nearly a whole day, it isn’t much better. Apple is working on an iOS 5 software fix that might eventually take care of the battery draining issues that face iPhone 4S customers. Their first attempt, the release of iOS 5.0.1, wasn’t much help for some users.

If you cannot wait any longer and you own either of these phones one solution could be the MiLi Power Pack 4 ($60) from xengadget.com. The 3000 mAh slider case will give your iPhone 4 or 4S the extra power boost it needs to last until bed time. I tested it on my iPhone 4S and I’d like to share my experience with you.

Review by Kelly Keltner

Many headsets promise a headset utopia, making smartphone users’ heads fill with visions of commanding their world with a simple voice command.

The Plantronics Marque M155 ($60) and the Motorola HX550 ($60) both make similar promises, with the HX550’s packaging going as far as to promise a “complete hands-free solution.” Both headsets offer liberation from holding the phone, but how do these midrange ‘sets match up to the marketing promises — or the abilities of their more expensive siblings?

Weathermob is new and hip on the App Store this week. It’s a weather app with a twist – it’s social. Think of it as Instagram for clouds. Kinda.

This is iF Poems, a new educational app aimed at children, but with much to offer to grown-ups too.

Onmaway is a location sharing app designed to let you concentrate on your travels, rather than interrupting them to tell everyone where you are.

Simplier is a very simple $3 music player for people who just want to hear some tunes without having to trudge through the hassle of opening and browsing inside iTunes.

The revamped Google Search app for iOS, which we reported on yesterday, is a huge improvement on what went before.

Fotopedia Japan is a lovely photographic tour of modern Japan, available for free right now on the iOS App Store.

Iconic Brit kids comic The Beano has made its debut on the iOS App Store, with a hidden treat inside for kids: five free issues for the grabbing.

Early reviews of Amazon’s Kindle Fire haven’t been kind, but I like the device. It’s a versatile and enjoyable little media tablet.

It doesn’t pretend to be anything it’s not (a general-purpose tab), and though not as polished as Apple’s products, its a good first try.

The trouble is that everyone is comparing the Kindle Fire to the iPad, and it will always come up short. The Kindle Fire is actually closer to the iPod touch, but it’s not that either. It’s a well-made, well-designed window into Amazon’s media ecosystem, and on that score, it succeeds very well.

Hauling my back end out of bed each morning is a horrible task, especially during the winter months. Even with the recommended eight hours sleep, I never wake up feeling refreshed. However, I was hoping all that was about to change, thanks to a little app-enhanced headband.

The WakeMate ($60) is an accessory and app for your iOS device that has two main objectives: to help you track and analyze your sleep pattern; and to wake you up at the optimal time in your sleep cycle so that you feel better about waking up early — which is just what I needed.

If you caught our canalphone roundup a few weeks back, you’ve by now come to the accurate realization that there’s no shortage of real alternatives to those awful white buds bundled with each iPhone. But these two are a little different.

Like the five we reviewed that week, these two pairs of IEMs — the MEElectronics CC51 ($90) and the Thinksound ts02+mic ($110)— are higher-end, designed with superior sound quality in mind and cost around $100. But unlike the others, these two are from small, boutique manufacturers; they also both have housings made from exotic materials (the CC51’s is ceramic, while the ts02’s is wood), and eschew the inline volume controls of the pairs of reviewed in the $100 IEM week, instead making do with a single control button on their inline microphones.

Today’s – probably this week’s – Best Thing Ever is the amazing, ear-exploding wonder that is Brian Blessed Alarm Clock.

Mixel is a free digital art and social networking app for iPad. It works beautifully; you and your kids will love it. The only downer is its unfortunate requirement that you link it to Facebook. No Facebook means no Mixel.

Evil Twin is a joke photo app that makes use of something called the Thatcher Effect.

Jabra isn’t an organization afraid of veering off the main road; it seems to use many of its high-end Bluetooth gadgets as design and technology showpieces — sometimes with unfortunate results (the Stone sacrifced performance for a radically shaped body, and the Halo headphones were all kinds of awful).

But when Jabra isn’t trying to reinvent the wheel, it’s actually able to give us stuff that’s pretty darn good. The outfit’s newest creation is the high-end Jabra Supreme ($100), the first monoaural Bluetooth headset to offer active noise-cancelling technology in its earpiece, along with all the other goodies usually stuffed into a primo ‘set. So Jabra’s definitely gone the showcase route with the Supreme — but this time, the headset is also an outstanding performer.

It’s here. It’s Minecraft. And now you can play it on your iOS device. Clap your blocky hands together and praise Notch.

If you’ve played Minecraft before, this isn’t quite the game you’re used to. As it stands, Minecraft: Pocket Edition is a stripped-down version that removes what many existing fans of the game will say are the best bits. Don’t pay too much attention to the complaints, though, because there’s still a lot of fun to be had with what remains.

Review by Jordan Trimas

Let’s face it, with the smörgåsbord of gadgets that most of us use these days, having a few different bags to accommodate and protect our cherished portables is paramount. Despite a few minor drawbacks, the Tenba Messenger Large Photo/Laptop Bag ($110), may be good enough to replace a couple of your bags, backpacks or cases — especially if you’re a photography professional/enthusiast or techie with a DSLR and a laptop.

AppZilla 2 is one of those jack-of-all-trades apps, squeezing 120 little mini-apps into one place.

Tap it, and it grinds open with a dramatic kzzzzzzrrr-tang sound. Inside, you see a springboard-within-a-springboard, with pages of apps to mess around with.

When you first hear about it, Blueprint 3D doesn’t sound like it could be a compelling iOS puzzle game – but it is.

The premise couldn’t be simpler. Each level shows you the blueprint image of an object, exploded in 3D so that the object itself isn’t immediately obvious. Your task is to move the exploded view around until its identity is revealed. That’s it.

I fell in love with Super Mario Bros. when my parents bought me a Super Nintendo Entertainment System (SNES) for Christmas as a young boy, and I’ve been obsessed with Super Mario games ever since. There’s nothing that would please me more than having the chunky plumber in my pocket on my iPhone. But since Nintendo refuses to bring its titles to iOS, we’re forced to play the alternatives.

But that’s not necessarily a bad thing. The absence of Super Mario has spawned a number of terrific platforming alternatives that are just as enjoyable. I’ve been enjoying a number of them over the years, and thought it was about time I shared the best of the bunch.

YouTube wasn’t supposed to be a music player, but that’s what a lot of people use it for. There are millions of songs on YouTube – the only problem is finding them.

That’s why you might enjoy a Mac app called Musictube, which takes the hard work out of finding and playing the songs you want. If you want a video jukebox on your Mac, this is it.

You know about Activity Monitor for your Mac, right? How would you like to have an Activity Monitor for your iPhone too? Something like Activity Monitor Touch might do the trick.