Remember the bad old days of the iPod? Apple would release a new model with a bunch of new features, and the old model – while capable of running the new software – would be left out in the cold. It was obviously a cynical scheme to make you upgrade your perfectly good music player early, but it worked.
So it is with cameras. Firmware upgrade are almost always limited to small bug fixes. The latest 7D update, though, is huge, and almost gives owners a brand new camera.
Ahh, Polaroid – how far you have fallen. Once a true icon, an essential tool for photographers and a medium for many artists, as well as being the only way to take dirty photos without getting arrested at the processing lab.
Now you are stuck licensing your name and Logo to any cowboy who wants to stick a crappy ZINK (zero-ink) printer inside a box with a cellphone camera.
Magnets are a big part of almost all Apple’s products these days — the MagSafe power adapter, the iPad Smart Cover, the closures for all its notebooks and even holding the screen on the iMac.
So why not use magnets in cases? That’s the thinking behind Booq’s shiny new Viper Sleeve for the MacBook Air.
There are several iPad cases which have straps to let you fasten them to the headrests of your car seats so people in the back can watch movies. The trouble is, they’re almost all bulky and ugly, as they try to cram too much into one case.
X-Doria’s Drive-In is also bulky and ugly, but as it’s designed as a permanent addition to your car, who cares?
If you want to buy a new zoom lens for your FujiFilm XPro-1 camera, then tough: Fujifilm says that you’ll have to wait until next year. The company has released a roadmap for its XF-series lenses and the variable focal-length lenses are almost all due in 2013.
It’s not all bad, though. Lovers of fast, fixed glass have some treats in store.
How’s this for an almost spectacularly misguided idea. It’s the HighLine, and it’s a kind of springy phone cord which locks into the dock connector of your iPhone or iPad. Sure, it’ll keep the phone safe if you drop it, but it will also cause you to swear the moment the cable gets caught up and rips itself out of the delicate 30-pin dock connector port.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wAC1_VcP-AU
This is the R* Case, and it might just be my new favorite iPad skin, based only on this video. And not just because the case itself, with two old 80s-skateboard-style rails on the back, looks very useful. It’s also because the video itself is an engaging mix of hard work and high-cheese.
RadTech’s brand spanking news RadSleevz are the closest you’ll get to a Smart Cover for your new Retina MacBook Pro. Although some of you might feel that your $2,000+ notebook deserves a little more protection, others will appreciate the RadSleevz’ minimalism.
It seems that there can be no corner of the niche product universe that can’t be mined and exploited with tasteless “luxury” versions of regular, plain ol’ tools. Today’s example: the Lynktec ArtCloths, which show your “appreciation” for great art in the same way that the tinny ringtone snippet belching from your cellphone shows your appreciation of music.
I used to think that Wash & Go – shampoo and conditioner in one bottle – was the greatest combination of all time. That’s until I found out about the Camera Cooler, a camera bag and beer cooler in one. Clearly, the predictions that the Singularity would occur in 2012 were correct.
Instaglasses. What a fantastic idea. Sadly only a concept (and surely destined to remain so), these special specs survey the scene before you and apply your choice of Instagram filter to the real world. You’ve heard the expression “seeing the world through rose-tinted glasses”? Well, these are retro-tinted glasses.
If you had any doubts that the world of iPhone accessories could grow any stranger or more diverse, then throw them out now. The Shaka Wind Meter proves that there are still plenty of depths yet to plumb.
The Shaka is a simple little gadget: a fan that plugs into the headphone socket of your iPhone and tells you the wind speed. It’s made for surfers, but has many more uses than that.
Who doesn’t love the Drobo? People who like to lose their data, that’s who. For the rest of us, today brings good news: New Thunderbolt-equipped Drobos, one for the desktop and one for taking on the road.
Satechi’s Portable Energy Station is the backup battery you need if you have a new iPad aka iPad 3. Why? Because its 10,000 mAH battery is almost as capacious as the 12,000 mAH (45 watt-hour) battery in the iPad 3 itself.
Magnets. Even if we’ll probably never know how they work, you gotta love them. They let us pin notes to fridges, they lock and unlock your iPad’s screen and now they can even stick your your iPhone to any metal surface. If only they didn’t do that pesky trick of wiping your bak cards, magnets would be pretty much perfect.
You’re on a bike. You’re carrying your MacBook Air and your iPad with you, when it starts to rain. Do you: a.) duck under the nearest bridge to wait it out (and maybe play a few quick levels of Angry Birds); b.) Panic a little, but carry on, hoping that your crappy messenger bag holds up; or c.) laugh out loud, and turn left instead of right at the next stop and add another few kilometers to your trip. After all, riding in the rain is fun, right?
If your answer was “c”, then you probably already own the new Chrome Lieutenant Rolltop Messenger Bag.
Almost nightly I scrabble around in the dark trying to find the 30-pin dock connector dangling from my desk so I can plug it onto my depleted iPad without disturbing the Lady, sleeping beside me. I say “almost” as sometimes I fall into a drunken sleep with my spectacles askew and the iPad still in my lap or – more often – the Lady refuses to sleep with me and goes to her own room.
And every time I struggle to find the plug, I wish for something like the illuminated CordLite cable.
The Motive Stylus solves one of the most annoying problems of carrying a stylus for your iPad: Where do you put it? We have seen magnetic styluses which snap onto the Smart Cover before, but none does it quite so securely and unobtrusively as the Motive, which actually folds flat.
Bluetooth 4 is proving to be quite a lot more than just an incremental spec bump to the wireless protocol. Thanks to its super low power needs, Bluetooth 4 is finding all sorts of clever uses.
Example: The Hone, a key fob which can talk to your iPhone whenever you lose your keys, and yet still remain functional for up to six month between charges.
Just a few weeks ago, Lomo started selling craptastic 110 film cartridges so you could relive those bad old days of ugly, grainy photos you thought you’d left back in the 1980s.
Now, the horror is complete, for Lomo will also sell you a 110 camera to go with the film.
The iPad is many things, but one thing it is not is easy to hold. The Lady literally refuses to touch one when it’s naked (a sound policy in some other situations too), and even though I love the skinny feel of the iPads 2 and 3 in my hands, I too get a little nervous.
Higher Ground’s Protex is a case that not only protects the iPad, but makes it way easier to hold – and all without adding bulk or fugliness.
An LED lighting panel to help with your iPhone photos. Sounds super-lame, right? Well, allow me to change your mind, because when you see the Kicker in action, you’re going to want the Kickstarter campaign to finish ASAP.
Normally we leave camera rumors alone until the actual real thing is launched. But the stories whirling around the internet regarding the Nikon D600 are too much to resist.
The D600 is said to be an entry-level full-frame DSLR, coming in at a price way below the new D800, and also the amazing D700. This is a big deal as full-frame (35mm film sized) DSLRs have always been reserved for the high (and expensive) end of manufacturers’ lineups. And now, we have (purported) photos to prove it.
The iPad might seem to be the ideal tool for medical professionals — lightweight, always connected, reliable and with an all-day battery. But none of that will help you if you slip with a scalpel and suddenly have a gusher on your hands, or someone evacuates the contents of their ungrateful stomach all over your tablet.
What you need, doctor, is Griffin’s new AirStrap Mad.
Nikon has made two new lenses available for your photographic delectation. One is a dim superzoom for DX (crop-sensor) cameras — the 18-300mm ƒ3.5-5.6G ED — and the other is an equally dim short zoom for full-frame bodies, the 24-85mm ƒ3.5-4.5G ED VR.