You know what’s really easy? Holding the iPad. You know what’s even easier? Not spending $100. Which is why the XFLEX has its work cut out: it’s a flexible, heavy-footed iPad stand which costs more than a crappy pre-pay Android phone.
Optrix’s XD camera case for the iPhone looks like just another ruggedized box, but it distinguishes itself with a low price ($100), a whole bagful of included accessories, and one unique feature.
If Crocodile Dundee had been a digital artist instead of a hardened Aussie hunter, and if you had pulled your iPad stylus out in the middle of a heated argument somewhere in NYC, then he would have said this:
“Call that a stylus? That’s not a stylus… This is a stylus.”
And then pulled out the JaJa, an iPad stylus that is not only pressure-sensitive (with 1024 levels), but manages to communicate its intent to your iPad without a cable, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth or any other radio protocol. How the hell do it work?
If you carry a stylus for your iPad, it’s fair to say you like writing (or at least doodling). And – by extension – it’s likely that you also carry a pen. Now one of our favorite styluses – – the metal-mesh-tipped TruGlide from Linktec – has been turned into the Duo, a single stick with a different writing technology at each end.
The Soloshot is not, as you might suspect, a wipe-clean target aimed at the adult video market. Instead, it is a motorized stand for a sports camera, although its target customer is likely the same lonely soul that would be interested in the (mythical) pop-shot tracking gadget I mentioned above.
It’s official: Wi-Fi is the new megapixels. Or something. What’s certain is that the camera phone market has forever mixed up the regular camera world, and in order to offer some form of uploading and editing convenience for their dumb offline boxes, camera makers are adding Wi-Fi. Specifically, Wi-Fi that will connect to your iPhone or Android device.
The latest is the Fujifilm FinePix F800EXR, a compact superzoom which will cost you $380.
I’m totally against the wrapping of wires, ever since being shouted at on a movie location for over-enthusiastically coiling audio and power cables around my thumb and elbow. Apparently that’s not how it’s done by the pros, and the experience has made me wince every time I see somebody stretching their headphone cables around their iPod.
Still, I’m clearly in the (superior) minority, and the The Wrap proves it. It’s a plastic 3-D printed widget which wrangles your cable into order.
Replug is a gadget that could – if it had existed a few years ago – would have saved me a fortune; literally hundreds of dollars. It is a simple and excellent idea: a magsafe connector for your headphones, only without the magnets.
This is the X-Cap, a prototype self-opening lens cap for compact cameras. It’s a straight replacement for the removable lens caps increasingly found on higher-end point-and-shoots, and turns them into low-end point-and-shoots.
If you have been desperately seeking a Bluetooth speaker which looks like a video projector, or a small, mains-powered electric fan heater, then your search is over! Behold: the Croon, the wireless/wired
speaker of your twisted dreams.
There are a few ways to keep your phone juiced as you ride. Those with foresight will have specced a wheel with a dynamo hub and USB adapter. Those who live in sunnier climes might opt for a solar panel. ANd those who lack both good weather and good planning skills can grab the Tigra BikeCharge, an iPhone charger that will fit any bike.
I might bang on a bit about manual knobs and dials, but sometimes they are the perfect and simple solution to a complex problem. Who wants to dig around in menus when you can just twist a ring and get immediate feedback on the result?
So it is with the Astro, a tripod-top time-lapse controller with all-manual – and all-awesome – controls.
Noteshelf? Evernote? Wacom’s amazing Inkling? Pah! These are all electronic pretenders to the crown of the real portable note-taking king: paper. And with the Binder Clip Case, you can add this noble, non-shareable, non-searchable technology to your iPhone 4/S.
If you have a huge stack of old negatives or slides, your best bet is to send them off to India. Seriously: there are services which will scan all your negs, let you choose which ones you actually want to keep via a web browser and then get the digital files returned to you. Apparently it’s pretty cheap.
Or you could do it yourself, with the iPICS2GO Negative to iPhone Scanner. It’s a black box which uses your iPhone 4/S’s camera to snap photos of your own old film and then feeds them into software to produce the photos
The Tablet Strap is exactly the kind of corporate-dorkwear iPad accessory I used to poke fun at. Now, though, having used an iPad since the first one launched all those moons ago, it’s the kind of iPad accessory I want to buy. Or I would, if it didn’t have that hideous pleather-look finish.
IGills is another waterproof iPhone case, but this one is a little more waterproof than the rest. It’s billed as a “smart diving system” which replaces $1,000s worth of specialist gear, and that’s not far off the mark.
If there was ever a company mired in Microsoftian corporate nonsense, it’s IRIS, the scanning and OCR company. Clunky, ugly and ridiculously overpriced software combined with hideous hardware, and a lame bird-based logo to boot – if IRIS were a human, it would be a taste-free middle-manager from the early 1990s.
The latest example is the IRIScan Book 2, a scanner which you have to drag over each sheet of paper by hand in order to digitize the letters thereon.
Finally! Canon has at last announced its answer to Micro Four Thirds and other mirrorless formats. And unlike Nikon, which was content to dash off a crappy toy in the shape of the “1,” the EOS M is pretty much exactly what we hoped for: an EOS SLR packed into a tiny body.
Every once and a while here at Cult of Mac, we like to peel open our gadget bags and catalogue what’s inside them for a bit of fun in our “What’s in our gadget bag?” series. The scope of our gadget bags has nothing on Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak’s, though: his bag contains two iPads, a MacBook Pro, two iPod nanos, three iPhone 4Ses, an iPhone 4, a Mophie, a Jambox and even more.
Another day, another iPhone camera lens case and adapter. This one is called the Phocus and manages to distinguish itself both by its angular, military-look styling, and by the fact that you can (with a further adapter) stick your SLR lenses on the front.
Let me count the ways that I have killed so many successive sets of earbuds, whether from Apple or otherwise. Rain, sweat (ears), sweat (general, dripping), wet ear canals from insufficient after-shower toweling. More rain.
You get the idea.
If only I’d had a pair of Klipsch’s new rugged S4i earbuds, which are rubberized against both the elements and also my deadly perspiration.
The earbuds are also fully iReady, with a mic for calls and a three button remote for play/pause/answer and volume control. The specs say that the sensitivity (a good measure of how loud they are) is 110dB and the frequency response goes from 10Hz to 19kHz – a respectable range for a ‘bud.
But the toughness is the thing, and these multicolored cans can put up with most exercise and outdoor activity.
I doubt they can resist my single most common way to break a pair of headphones though – the Tug. The Tug can be achieved in many ways, but has one common element: you forget about a dangling cord and catch it fatally on an immovable object, or your own body. I have ended the life of a pair of Porta Pros by standing from a crouch and catching the cable on a knee. And I butchered a pair of retro Panasonic over-the-ear headphones when the cable snagged on a post in the street.
I should probably be more careful.
The S4is will be available soon.
Source: Klipsch
Thanks: Ashley!
This replica is probably the closest you’ll ever get to having a real Doctor Who Sonic Screwdriver. What does it have to do with Apple, you ask? After all, this is the Cult of Mac.
The Screwdriver is also a universal remote, which means that it will not only control your TV and VHS VCR, but also you Apple TV and – via the Universal Dock – your iPhone or iPod.
Sick of plugging and unplugging cables from your MacBook Pro every time you get back to your desk? Hate wasting one of the two USB ports just to keep your iPhone connected? And finally: don’t want to spring for a $1,000 Thunderbolt Display?
Then the KwikDock might be right up your alley: It’s a simple (and cheapish) pass-through dock with some handy extras.
This is the Pear, and it might just be one of the most useful iPhone accessories yet devised. It’s a little, puck-like Bluetooth receiver that is designed to slot into any speaker dock and free your iOS device from its needy clutches.
The big advantage Jambone’s Jambox has over its competitors is upgradeable firmware. The speaker is in fact a tiny computer which can be updated from time to time. Previous additions have been the spookily excellent surround-sound simulation called Live Audio, and you can also install one of many apps which add new voices, or let you access third-party services.
The Jambox might not be the loudest or even the best-sounding speaker out there, but it is certainly the most future-proof. And now another update adds yet more new features.