Fact: Kids love Lego.
Fact: Kids love cameras.
Fact: Kids love to choke on teeny, tiny sharp plastic bricks.
Fuuvi’s special edition Nanoblock camera satisfies all of these passions: It’s a tiny little kit made of even tinier little nano-Legos, and any child, even a stupid one, can use it to make all kinds of neat working digital cameras.
It seems to me that the least vulnerable part of your iPhone 5 is the rear panel: The glass windows at the top and the bottom are tucked away, and the rest is aluminum, which might scratch or dent but it will never shatter (unless you freeze it in nitrogen first).
But if you think covering the tough rear panel with a thick plywood coating is a good idea, then the SkateBack might be just what you’re looking for. It’s a candy-colored cover refashioned from old skateboard decks.
It is becoming clear that some case styles are better suited to the iPad Mini than others. And it seems that Pad&Quill’s bookbindery cases are clearly way more appropriate for the little mini than they ever were for the bigger iPad.
Not that the regular-sized cases aren’t great — they are. But the whole bundle always seemed a little big. Now, though, the match looks to be ideal.
Oh man. I’m trying so hard not to buy an iPad Mini, and this new Skech case isn;t helping any. It’s a variation on one of my favorite iPad cases ever, and now it has been made tinier and cuter.
It’s called the SkechBook, and it looks good enough to make me buy a new iPad.
I have a feeling that there are going to be many, many misguided attempts at making iPad Mini cases. Exhibit A: The Rubata Mini case from Padacs, a cheap and extraordinarily ugly keyboard case which turns the little iPad into a tiny laptop.
Where am I going with this? One word: netbooks.
The “world’s first panoramic monitor” might not sound appropriate for the Cult of Mac, but when you find out about some of its tricks, you’ll see why I’m bothering to tell you about it.
The monitor is from LG, measures 29-inches on the diagonal and has a wide, wide aspect ratio of 21:9, and a rather lame resolution of 2,560 x 1,080.
Still looking for an iPhone 5 dock? Yeah, me too. But I have found a BIY dock that not only looks cool but is pretty much free. If you have a printer and a sheet of thick paper around the house that is. And you don’t mid paying for the PDF.
We’re used to cheap software mimicking expensive hardware, and nowhere has that been truer than with tilt-shift photography. What was once an effect needing super-expensive and unwieldy architectural camera gear is now a free filter in many free apps.
But the trend sometimes goes the other way. Here’s the Tilt Shift camera from Photojojo, an actual physical digital camera with a tilt-shift lens. For $150.
In the age of tiny, efficient Thunderbolt and Lightning ports, stuffing a full-sized USB plug into a Mac now seems so very very old fashioned. Still, USB is still the oversized and awkward norm, and stuff them into our Macs we must.
Which is where Satechi’s “Premium 4-Port Aluminum USB 2.0 Hub” comes in.
Still looking for an iPhone 5 dock that isn’t just your iPhone 4 dock, a Lightning adapter and a cable tie? Me too. Or I was, until Chris Jung from Braeburn Acoustics mailed me about his cool-looking acoustic amplifying iPhone stand.
I’m so desperate for a dock for my new iPhone 5 that I have closely studied the little perspex stands in the local Apple Store and scoured the local hardware emporiums for something — anything — that comes close to its acrylic simplicity.
I have so far failed, and am currently using the box the iPhone came in as a pretty handy stand. But I’m not really that serious about docks, unlike the people who dropped cash and patience on the Elevation Dock from Kickstarter, only to have it obsoleted by the new Lightning connector weeks after it shipped.
Anyway, all of this lede-burying is preamble to one thing: you can now buy a Lightning insert for your Elevation Dock.
With its pocket-sized price and pocket-sized, uh, size, the new iPad Mini looks to be the ideal iPad to carry naked. It’s tough, it can be gripped easily, and it never needs to be left face-down on the kitchen countertop as long as your pants have normal-sized pockets available.
But of course you’re going to buy a case. And if it’s bumps and scratches you’re worried about, perhaps you might consider the Smooth Series case from Ballistic.
Nikon keeps busting out the new SLRs with the D5200, an upgrade to the D5100 that is bigger than the mere 100 extra numbers in its name would suggest.
Gizmon’s remote shutter release for the iPhone is simple, effective and cheap. But its novelty styling in the shape of a roll of film is likely to baffle much of its potential audience.
The Unmonday 4.3L is a $700 ceramic AirPlay speaker which comes with its own leather carrying case. It is gorgeous, and if you want to use it to its full potential, you’re going to have to buy another four of them.
The iPad Mini is here, and it is lying naked and vulnerable on your desk/bed/lap/passenger seat. And that’s ok, because today is all about tweaking and configuring your settings, installing apps and seeing which of your pants have back pockets big enough to carry it (don’t sit down!)
But what of tomorrow? Soon you’ll start searching for cases, speakers, docks and other accessories for the latest tiny addition to your family, and that’s where we come in. Yes, you can use most of your iPad and iPhone accessories with the new Mini, but here are some add-ons which work particularly well with Apple’s littlest tablet.
I just switched from a giant, 27-inch iMac back to a little ol’ MacBook, and while my desk looks a lot bigger, my shoulders and neck hate me for it. What I might need, then, is the new HiRise for MacBooks from the fine folks at Twelve South. All it really does is raise the notebook up off the desk so you don’t get a crick in your neck from looking downwards all day long, but it does it with such style that it might just be worth the $70 asking price.
Especially if your whole reason for ditching a bigger computer is to make your office look cooler.
The iStabilizer is a combination monopod and camera/phone tripod adapter. It’s light, it’s sturdy, it’s mostly aluminum, and it’s pretty much ideal for occasional use. And it has one fantastic function which will probably get you arrested.
Quick test: see if you can guess what the following product does, just by decoding its cryptic name. Ready?
Belkin NetCam Wi-Fi with Night Vision
The iPhone 5 is the best camera Apple has ever made (OK, maybe the second-best), so why not dress it like one of the best film cameras ever made?
That’s just what PetaPixel’s Leica skin will do, turning your long, thin iPhone into a long, thin fake rangefinder.
Earbuds and sunglasses, two things that sit up on your head and hang from your ears. If only there was some way to combine the two…
Oakley tried it some years ago with the Thump, which resulted in one of the most hideous product designs ever conceived — if H.R Giger had re-imagined between-toe fungus as an alien growth across your eyes and temples, it would have looked like the Thump.
Luckily, Sanpei Optics has come to the rescue with this gadget, which takes a normal-looking pair of shades and a normal-looking set of earbuds and simply sticks them together.
There’s never been a better time to get fit, thanks to the wealth of fitness tracker options available to work with your iPhone. That’s not strictly true — first, it’s always a good time to get fit. And second, the more choices there are for fitness trackers, the more opportunity there is for procratination.
Still, the Striiv is a welcome addition.
Just Mobile’s new Alurack is a clever solution to the question “Where do I put my stupid MacBook while I’m using it with an external monitor?”
The Alurack’s answer is “Hang it,” either from the back of a Cinema Display or from your iMac.
Just when you thought an iPhone or iPad dock had been built into every possible household object, here comes the iRocking Chair. In looks, it's a pretty traditional rocker, but it has some surprises built in. Not least is the fact that it can charge an iPad 3.
Calling the new Livescribe Sky a pen is like calling your iPhone 5 a phone. Technically the Sky is a writing instrument, but it has about as much in common with a pen as your iPhone has with an old rotary dial telephone.
The Sky lets you write and draw on paper, and it then uploads your notes wirelessly (no computer required) to your Evernote account. From there you can immediately access them from your iPad, iPhone, Mac or any device with a browser.