I’m not going to write up every single photo gadget that gets updated for the iPhone 5 (I’ll stop when Olloclip ships an updated version of its clip-on accessory lens, I promise). But as iPhone 5 gear is as thin on the ground as the iPhone 5 is thin in your hand, then the new Holga Filter Case is worth a mention — not least because is also gets a new color.
These gorgeous wooden iPhone 5 cases come from the U.K, and look like they’d cost you an absolute fortune. Amazingly, for something hand-crafted and exquisitely designed, they cost just £35, or $56. Sure, it ain’t cheap, but neither is it crazy.
I will be ordering a Button 2.0 for every single one of my shirts. I will even be sewing them onto my t-shirts in order to make them more useful. Why? As you can see in the image above, Button 2.0 is a simple upgrade to boring old Button 1.0 which turns it into a grippy place to clip your iPhone’s headphone cable.
Libratone’s Zipp is a another AirPlay speaker, only this one has a couple of twists. The most obvious difference between this and the Big Jambox (its closest competitor) is the colorful wool felt cover. The other difference is in how it connects: The Zipp creates its own Wi-Fi access point.
This amazing chunk of technology is – unbelievably – home made. It’s a camera, it is milled Apple-style from a single block of aluminum, and it’s called the Hyperscope. What’s not to love?
Hey, sucker? Did you buy an iPad 3 and an Adonit Jot Pro stylus recently? Then you’re one unlucky feller: not only has Apple released the iPad 4, but Adonit has updated its stylus.
Try not to cry.
You gotta love Apple (no, seriously, you gotta love Apple to get a job here at Cult of Mac – Leander tests our faith every day during Morning iService) – it might keep quiet and take its time to fix things, but fix them it does. Well, for high-profile problems at least.
Today’s fix is a new iPad charger, a beefed up 12-watt model which should juice the iPads 3 and 4 faster than the old model.
Just $124 will buy you the mCAMLITE, an aluminum case for your iPhone 5 which lets you attach all manner of photo and video accessories, as well as making it easier to hold.
No, this isn’t a stylish retro-camera case for fauxtographers, but it is a serious tool for photographers and videographers.
Why buy a whole new stylus and carry it around with you when you could just buy a little capacitive tip to slip onto the top of your biro/ballpoint pen/pencil? That’s the thinking behind Stylus Caps.
I’m posting this cute little gadget mostly for the benefit of Cult of Mac’s esteemed deputy editor John “olde-worlde” Brownlee, a man so reverent of natural materials that he once swapped out the ugly, modern sheet of borosilicate glass atop his induction hob for a shiny sheet of vintage, tanned pigskin.
With hilarious (and bacon-scented) results.
So this cable wrangler should be right up his street, especially as it is called the “Cable Fondler,” a name which will appear to Mr. Brownlee’s other weakness: he’s a colossal perv.
Nikon’s new 1 V2 is a super-serious enthusiast camera built around a joke of a toy sensor. The $900 camera ships with a 10-30mm kit lens, the crop factor of which should tell you all you need to know about this camera range: 2.7x turns the 10-30 into a 27-81mm equivalent.
Joby’s latest attempt at building stands for smartphones seems to finally be a winner. Instead of cases or stick-on adapters, the GripTight range simply clamps the target phone with a pair of spring-loaded jaws, and joins it to various supports.
Step 1: Apple announces new product.
Step 2: Accessory makers photoshop their entire product lineup to fit that new product.
Step 3: The press is deluged with PR emails.
And so it goes. The first in my inbox was iLuv, and its product picture people really have been busy shrinking everything down for the iPad Mini. If you’re planning on buying Apple’s shrunken-iPad-2-with-a-better-camera, then you’re not going to want for cases, chargers or any other crap.
Hate, nay loathe the horizontal? Does laying down leave you feeling unseemly? Does landscape orientation drive you crazy? Would you rather live in a tiny apartment at the top of a skyscraper than in a luxurious two-story country home? Then NewerTech’s new NuStand Alloy stands are for you.
The short form: If you have $60 to spend on a pair of iPhone-ready headphones, buy the RHA SA950is. They are hands-down the best $60 I have ever heard, and better than a lot of cans at several times the price. Move over Porta Pros — there’s a new boss in town.
The iPhone’s camera is a little wonder, not least in its actual physical manifestation. The tiny lens is now capped with a crystal cover made from the same scratch-shrugging glass used for high-end watches. And all it takes to clean off the daily gunk is a quick rub on your pants leg.
But that hasn’t stopped the folks at Ace Display (ace name, BTW!) from designing a redundant case to protect and clean that same lens.
Noteshelf, the iPad’s best handwritten note-taking app, is now even better. V7.0 adds new pens, customs colors and support for pressure-sensitive styluses. If you already own Noteshelf, you likely already downloaded it with great excitement over the weekend. If not, what are you waiting for?
When the folks at Griffin were choosing a mythical creature for which to name their company1, they might have gone with Janus instead, to better reflect the schizophrenic nature of its offering: serious computer accessories vs. frivolous toys.
That’s not to say that the toys are bad. On the contrary, Griffin’s iOS-controlled choppers look amazing. And now they’re joined by these remote-controlled monster trucks.
To be honest, I’m writing about DrBlinky for two reasons, both of them frivolous. One is the name: DrBlinky. Who couldn’t love a name like that?
The other is the Indiegogo pitch video, a triumph of cheesiness and amateur earnestness, but in a (very) good way. Put it this way — if Will Ferrell and Ricky Gervais ever teamed up to do a parody Kickstarter-style promo, it would look like this.
If it’s anything like the other products in the ever-burgeoning Beats franchise, the Beats Pill is likely a triumph of pricing over quality. It comes in at a Jamboxian $200, stands just two inches high, and works like any other portable speaker — via Bluetooth.
Lomo has launched yet another gorgeous new film camera, and this one looks as lame as all the rest. It’s called the Belair X 6-12, and it’s medium format.
Be-be, wo-wo, boo-bee. These are the kind of phrases a human being can only get away with uttering in public if still under the age of two. Fortunately, these are also the only words these underdeveloped fools can manage. There’s probably a lesson about ability vs. ambition hidden in there somewhere.
Which is to say that the Belkin Wemo baby monitor is probably the best-named baby monitor ever. Even your dumb infant can ask for it by name.
Here’s a neat idea: at least until all cameras have built-in Wi-Fi anyway: It’s a Wi-Fi SD card adapter — like the Eye-Fi cards, only instead of packing their own flash storage they have a hole which will happily hold a the microSD card of your choice.
Thus, you buy the adapter once, and stock up on a (small) pocketful of mini memory cards. This, the thinking goes, will be cheaper and more future proof than building Wi-Fi into every damn SD card you use.
The Jambox and its ilk of wireless high-tech boomboxes are fantastic, for both sound and freedom. But there’s no way my Mum would use one — it simply wouldn’t fit in with the crystal and porcelain knick-knacks (what I call “dust-catchers”) which carpet every horizonta surface like mushrooms on, well, you know.
The Joey Roth Ceramic Subwoofer, though, would probably be allowed.
Those ruggedized cases that turn your iPhone into a handy sports-cam? They can go suck it. GoPro has popped out a new sequel in its Hero lineup and it shoots 4K video whilst also being way smaller and lighter than its predecessor.