The only person who cares that your old 30-pin dock doesn’t fit your new iPhone 5 is you. Everyone else is ecstatic. Apple gets to cross another SKU off its product list, and third-party makers can sniff the sweet, sweet smell of opportunity in the air. The opportunity to separate you from yet more of your easily-spent dollars.
One such opportunist is David W, the clever chap behind the Dock+, the first Kickstarter dock we’ve seen for the iPhone 5.
iTwin SecureBox is a movie-thriller plot waiting to happen. It is also a security device modeled on those tacky his-n-hers heart-shaped pendants which snap in two so you can “show your love” at all times.
Back in the mundane real world, the iTwin SecureBox is a hardware encryption gadget for DropBox.
Imagine that you are chatting to somebody on your iPhone. Now imagine that — at the touch of a button — you can cause a fragrance to squirt from their iPhone and into their unsuspecting nostrils. Amazingly, there is a device which will make this nightmare scenario real, and — of course — it comes from Japan.
Perverts rejoice! Now there’s an iPhone accessory which will let you shoot pictures of pretty girls in public without anyone ever knowing. And it’s even better than a specially adapted camera, because you can just pretend to be like checking your messages or whatever.
It’s called the HiLo lens, and it puts the “can” and “did” into “candid.”
MagFilters are — surprise! — filters for your compact camera which are attached to the lens by magnets. Unlike SLRs and other interchangeable-lens cameras, compacts lack the interior thread on their lens which lets you attach these light modifiers, so MagFilters take a leaf out of the iPhoneographers book instead.
Say what you want about the stupid, impossible-to-control previous generation iPod Nano, but don’t say its clip wasn’t useful.
If you wanted to clip your tie to your shirt whilst making both of them sag thanks to the extra weight, or if you wanted to go jogging and have the heavy little block of aluminum and glass pull at and eventually drop off your t-shirt sleeve, then the old Nano was ideal.
The new one gets handy buttons and no longer looks like a Shuffle-with-a-screen, but it lacks the clip. Luckily, for $20 you can put it right back.
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iTrack Solo is a little box which lets you record two inputs directly into your iPad or your Mac. The aluminium unibody box has inputs for a microphone and a guitar, and outputs not only for the iPad but also for your headphones or anything that you can connect to stereo line-out plugs.
The Don’t Panic case is like a pair of comfy slippers for your iPad. As the name suggests, just using it is relaxing, the iPad-acessory equivalent of a valium or a well-mixed Old Fashioned at the end of a long day.
The floppy felt and leather sleeve is also a little like your embarrassing uncle. He has some horrible habits, and annoys you to death some times, but you can’t help loving him despite his foibles.
You probably don’t need the 10,000-watt iNuke Boom speaker for your iPhone, but you might just find a place in your home for the iNuke Boom Junior, a 1:23 scale model of Behringer’s basbehemoth.
Cork: soft, sustainable, impact-absorbing, grippy and nice to look at and touch. Who wouldn’t want to use it as an iPad case? The answer, in the case of the iCork from Pomm design, is anyone who like their iPad storage to be thin.
IPEVO’s USB document cameras are a weird kind of hybrid product. Or anti-hybrid, maybe? To scan documents and digitize them, you’d usually use either a sheet-feed scanner, or the camera in your iPhone/iPad.
The Point 2 View and Ziggi cameras sit on your desk — like dedicated scanners — but snap the documents using cameras, like your iPhone.
Go a GoPro HD Hero2? And an iPhone, iPad or (ahem) Android device? Then head over to the App Store right now, because — with a new free app — you can use one to control the other.
Lacie’s new Thunderbolt Little Big Disk claims to be the fastest portable Thunderbolt drive around, running at up to 635MB/s – “a 33 percent increase from the previous model.”
The Nomad Brush Flex is the latest in Nomad’s line of capacitive touchscreen brushes. That’s right — brushes. When you’re painting into an app like Brushes or Procreate on the iPad, then you really do want to use a stylus os some kind. And if you’re going to go to the trouble of using a stylus, why not make it a brush?
Journalists and PR folk, or hacks and flacks, are supposed to fight like cats and, uh, laser pointers shone onto walls. But like Jedis and ninjas, there are good ones and bad ones. And today, I got the best product tagline from one of the good ones, regarding the ECOXBT Bluetooth speaker:
Think Jambox…if Jambox wasn’t scared of the water and a wimp.
Who can argue with that?
You know how it is with iOS-enabled fitness trackers: they’re like busses. You wait around for ages, and then three (or more) all turn up at once.
And the sweetest, cleanest-looking of those busses looks to be the Lark, a clever, wrist-mounted sensor which tracks your whole day, from daily exercise to nightly sleep.
Another week, another clever way to hold your lens cap.
One of the very best things about the iPhone’s camera, aside from its portability, its speed, its quality, its connectivity and its ability to share pictures instantly. And to edit them. And its tough, sapphire crystal protective cap. And… Wait. Where was I?
Ah, yes. One of the best things about the iPhone camera is that there’s no lens cap to lose. That’s not the case for your supposedly superior SLR. Which is why you’re going to have to spend another $14 or so just to fix the problem.
I-Mego’s Throne headphones will bring a big dose of retro styling to the sides of your head. While they pack almost every modern piece of tech you need, they look more like those old-style mics used by radio-announcers (radio announcers in movies at least) and blues crooners.
Some gadgets pick one thing, and do only that thing. And they do it very, very well. Other gadgets try to pack in everything possible, and they usually end up doing everything badly. This is called the Swiss Army Knife Approach (SAKA), and if you ever wondered why the Swiss are neutral in all wars, now you know.
The ReadyCase takes the latter approach, and like any good SAKA device, it’s way more fun to marvel at the amount of widgets the makers packed in than it would ever be to use.
Oh man. Just this weekend I was poking around my kitchen, trying to find a stand to turn the iPhone/iPad into a scanner. And then this morning I open up the internet and find this, the Nimbus Cloud Dome, a plastic light-diffusing bowl which could double as a receptacle for making cakes.
It has been brought to my attention that people still use laptop computers when they travel. Instead of tossing a keyboard in with their iPad and calling it good, these masochists lug along an entire MacBook with them, just to do some work.
For these people, the Stukk stand exists. It is super-light and folds up ultra-small, helping you to not break your shoulder as you lug your behemoth around with you, and can be quickly assembled to keep your hot-running machine cool. Or cooler, at least.
How do you get a printed, paper photograph from your iPhone? The easiest way is probably to use an app which lets you pick a pic, and then get a print delivered to your door a few days later.
But the funnest way is probably the one used by Adam Rhoades: he prints them in a traditional darkroom, using the iPhone’s screen as both negative and enlarger bulb.
Did you know that “rucksack” is German for rucksack? Neither did I, until I just made a guess and wrote it down. And Fabric Horse’s new Rucksack Luxe (Luxus, in German) sure is a Luxe sack for your back (Ruck, in German).
PadPivot is one of those gadgets which at first appears completely absurd, but then grows on you as you see what it can do. It starts off looking like an over-engineered solution for an non- problem: putting an iPad on your lap. But then you see it stick, prop, and fold, and it all starts to look rather compelling.
Today, I bring you news of the Smartphone Coaster, an innovation that is clearly set to take the world by storm. Well, the world of promotional marketing, at least.
What is it? The Smartphone Coaster is a steel kickstand which can be branded with your company’s logo, thus spreading your corporate message to the world whilst simultaneously depleting our precious Earth’s limited supply of minerals. Congratulations: you hate the future.