You know how much you hate table drummers and air-scratchers (those morons who tilt their head to hold their air-headphones to their ears while spinning an imaginary vinyl record with their fingers and saying “wika-wika-wik” as they do it)? Well, don’t ever let one of them near Urbanears new Slussen. It’s like giving crack to a baby… Or something.
These days my desk is my lap. My work machine is an iPad, and my iMac is hanging on the wall, acting as little more than a BitTorrent machine and photo store. I still have a desk though, but it is useless for most of the year thanks to a marble top which sucks heat from my hands and wrists like a prisoner sucks on a cigarette after a week in solitary confinement.
Fortunately, there’s an accessory for people who – like me – love both felted wool, and their carpal tunnels. It’s the Desk-Pad Classic, and I will probably have ordered one by the time you finish reading this post.
Fact: wearing accessories and gadgets on your belt makes you look super cool – just like Batman. So if you buy a few Spider Monkeys, then your utility-belt cool-factor will shoot through the roof so fast that you’ll be sweeping up broken shingles for weeks.
The Spider Monkey comes from the folks who make the camera-holding Spider Holster, and it works with pretty much anything that isn’t a camera.
SlickWraps really needs to get on the ball and make one of these ultrasuede wraps for the iPad mini. As it is, the regular iPad sized version looks great, but this non-slip, soft-touch rear cover has baby tablet written all over it.
Quirky’s Pickup Power wants the be the last power-strip you’ll ever need. It houses AC outlets, USB chargers and – the best part – a detachable battery pack that’s always charged and ready to go.
It looks like someone finally solved the “Google your keys” problem in a way that real humans will use. It’s called Linquet, and it’s a little coin-sized trinket you attach to anything to stop you from losing it. This might sound familiar, but it looks like Linquet finally got it right
Often, simple=good. And the Sine Cable Stand from UrbanPrefer is both simple and good. It does two things: works as a cord-wrapper for your iPhone’s power cable, and acts as a handy-dandy stand for your iPhone while it charges.
Ever wish you could connect all your Thunderbolt accessories to one single box and then just hook that up to your MacBook? No, of course not. Because you don’t have any Thunderbolt accessories. Nobody does, unless they like spending double for a hard drive or have picked up one of Apple’s nice Thunderbolt displays. Which include the dock anyway.
No, what you need is the MacDock, a neat little Apple-TV-like box which connects a wealth of accessories to your vintage MacBook via it’s Mini DisplayPort and USB ports.
Anyglove is a gel which turns any glove into a touch-screen-friendly glove. Buy a bottle, drip-drip-drip some drops onto the fingers and thumbs of your favorite gloves and voila! (or “viola!” or “walla!” as they say in internet forums) you can now operate a capacitive screen.
Any of you out there familiar with the Muji CD player? It is/was a cute little box which you’d hang on the wall, press a CD onto and enjoy the tinny sound of tiny speakers spitting high-grade digital files into your ears.
Now you can — like any civilized person — ditch the spinning disk and just enjoy the music. Muji has now launched a Bluetooth speaker that looks a lot like the old CD box.
Oh Lord, the end is clearly, nearly nigh. Why? Because Kickstarter is now hosting a project to make aluminum notebook covers. No, not covers for your notebook computer. Covers for your hardcover paper notebook. The pull quote at the top of the pitch page says it all:
5052 Aluminum-Magnesium Alloy notebook & journal covers to keep your corners and pages straight.
For the longest time, there were no Lightning docks available for iPhones or iPads, and it looks like Apple will never make one. I have some thoughts on why that might be, but we’ll get to that in a bit. For now, we’re going to take a quick look at the seemingly crappy dock I picked up from Amazon last month. It’s called the “White Wave Lightning Dock Docking Charge Station for Apple iPad Mini/ iPad 4G/ iPhone 5/ iPod Touch 5G/ iPod Nano 7G,” which should give you some idea of the kind of SEO-mad company behind it.
I shall apologize now for bringing you yet another crowd-funded gadget today, but this is something special. I won’t dilly-dally here: It’s a frikkin’ Star Trek button for talking to Siri.
The db on these headphones stands not for douche-bag but for Duobuds. And now you’ll have no excuse not to share your music when somebody asks — unless you’re the d-bag, that is.
Yeah yeah I know. Another damn iPhone tripod mount. And on Kickstarter no less. I hear you: “Come on Sorrel, you handsome beast you1. Can’t you pick something new to write about?”
Well, cynical but smart reader — this one’s different. I promise. And it’ll work with pretty much any camera-phone ever.
iPad stands: You really do need one. Some are happy with the Smart Cover, which is fine for typing and movie watching, but not much else. And the really smart folks use the PadPivot, which is still my go-to do-everything stand (I’m using one right now).
But if what you want is a sturdy-looking stand for an iPad, whether in portrait or landscape orientations, and whether its in a case or out, then the Slider looks to be worth a look. It’s handsome, at least.
Klingg! That’s the sound of a grown man still unable to sever the maternal ties forged early in his life by a smothering mother. Just kidding. It is in fact the sound of my artisanal iPhone ringtones, recorded from the prayer bells of real Tibetan monks. Kidding again! Klingg is actually an iPhone accessory designed by the fictional Star Trek race… [Enough! -Ed].
Klingg is — truly this time — an earbud holder that clamps onto your clothes using magnets.
Sometimes an inventor comes up with something so mold-breaking, so truly original and – in hindsight – obvious that the world changes just a little bit. Today we bring news of such an Earth-shaking discovery. It’s called the iSpoon, and considering that it’s made for cooking, there’s a delicious irony in the fact that it mixes together two ingredients to make the perfect blend. It’s a synergistic, spoon-shaped supper, if you will.
Did you ever try on a pair of your mother’s clip-on earrings? Or maybe you own a pair yourself. If so, you’ll be familair with the way they use a small and cleverly designed clamp to clip the gaudy bauble to your ear.
Now, the Budsnaps are just like this, only instead of a dangling decoration, they secure your iPhone earbuds.
In my wallet, I have a little “secret” compartment which contains a few international micro SIMs, an Apple-made SIM ejection tool (aka a fancy paperclip), and a guitar pick.
Or at least I usually do. The other day, when I actually needed it, the ejector tool had somehow found its way out of the wallet and into my bag. The problem was that it was not the bag I had with me.
But if I’d had the SIMPL case on my iPhone, I’d have been golden.
You know those cool old waxed canvas bags which used to keep things dry before miners discovered nylon in a cave in Papua New Guinea1? Now you can make your own! Well, technically you could always make your own. But now Photojojo has provided a guide for you. Spoiler: it’s dead easy.
Do any of these sound familiar?
Now, I know what you’re thinking, because I’m thinking the exact same dirty thoughts; but no: they’re not fun “adult poses” to enjoy with another human or similarly-sized biped. They are in fact some of the new postures that chair-maker Steelcase has noticed in hours of actually watching how we slump in our seats.
BARCELONA, MOBILE WORLD CONGRESS – It’s not all announcements of exciting new Android handsets with fractionally faster processors here at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona. Oh no. You’ll also find rose-tinted spectacles. Yes, Elecom – maker of some of the most accessorial iAccessories ever – now makes some specs that will stop your eyes from being ruined – ruined! – by blue light.
BARCELONA, MOBILE WORLD CONGRESS – Excito is an AppleTV-a-like puck which hooks up to your home network and lets you stream TV, music and movies to any stereo or screen in the house.
So what, right? The Apple TV already does that? The difference is that the Excito only uses your phone as a remote, and streams the content either direct from the internet, or from your own local media server. Oh, and it costs around half the price if the already-cheap Apple TV.
BARCELONA, MOBILE WORLD CONGRESS – You’re stuck in the dessert. You are thirsty, hot, and – worst of all – your cellphone is dead. You discover that you have a teaspoonful of water that you had previously overlooked. Do you a) Drink it? or b) use it to recharge your phone.
What?