Transporter just took another step towards being a viable alternative to Dropbox for mobile users. Now the private cloud has become a “platform.” Don’t worry though – this just means that app makers are now free to add Transporter support to their apps, letting you sync and save your data from your iPad and iPhone.
Urban Outfitters, everyone’s favorite copyright-infringing chain store, is at it again with the Happy Plugs, earbuds from a “Swedish fashion and lifestyle brand that brings color to the world.”
Can you imagine a pair of Apple’s old Earbuds, only in color? Congratulations, because you just imagined the Happy Plugs, in a uncannily accurate piece of mind theater.
At last, a portable Thunderbolt drive that leeches its power from the Thunderbolt connector itself, just like a USB drive. And you can’t even lose the cable for WD’s new My Passport Pro – it’s built into the unit itself.
Fotobit is a 4.25 x 4.25-inch frame designed for wall-mounting your Instagrams. It’s modular, so you can slot the frames together to cover the wall with an Insta-mural, and the frames themselves are a handsome matte black or white. But there’s more.
Paper? In the age of the iPad? Unthinkable! Ink from a pen? Inconceivable! And yet that’s what the new Booqpad for iPad Air promises us, a case that both protects the iPad and gives you a pad and paper to write on. Not only that, but it does it all with magnets.
I use flash thumb drives for precisely one purpose these days – taking a PDF boarding pass to the local print shop. That doesn’t stop me being impressed with Edge’s new DiskGo Sonic USB 3.0 Flash Drive, though, which is a super-fast SSD drive in the form of a USB stick.
Back when I wrote at Wired, I called Waterfield’s keyboard case a “signal of the end of civilization.” Who needs a coddling cover for a keyboard that is so tough it can keep working even after you have a tantrum and smash it on a marble topped table? Repeatedly? (Like a friend of mine did one time).
Now I actually use that same cover whenever I travel, so I’m a little more accepting of the new “CitySlicker for the Jawbone Mini Jambox,” a case for the toughest little speaker on the market.
Oh man. If you make a product. Then somebody, somewhere, will make a case of a stand for it. This is a rule as fast as death, taxes and death taxes. So, if you were thinking that your AirPort Extreme was doing a pretty crappy job of sitting on your desk, and of not falling over, then the Air Mount is for you.
The Photographer’s pouch is a boiled-wool pocket that will stick inside any camera bag thanks to the velcro strip on its back. And of course you’re not limited to cameras, or even camera bags – anything that will fit fits, and any bag with velcro can be used.
This is more of a tip than a gadget, but it uses a gadget, so we should be cool. Photojojo’s new Selfie Help book (actually a web page) is full of great tips, but one jumped out at me: why not take that fisheye lens you have and stick it on the front camera of your iPhone?
The little BOLT Charger Battery is as clever as it is good looking. The USB wall-charger packs a backup battery into its tiny body, as body that leads its maker to call it the “The World’s Smallest Wall Charger + Battery Backup.”
I’m not sure how true that it, but who cares? It fits in your pocket and it’ll juice your iPhone twice, even without a wall to shove it into.
The already-great GeoTagr app has been updated to v4.4. This doesn’t sound like much, but there’s one huge new feature in this update: support for geotagging photos stored in your iPhone or iPad’s local photo library.
Pop quiz:
Is the iTie
a) A derogatory term used by older English people to insult Italians?
b) An electronic collar which uses a tie as a flexible screen – kind of like an iPhone, only a tie?
c) All of the above?
The answer is of course c), and we have the pictures to prove it.
You know how you see folks running or jogging and holding those pathetic little half-kilo (one-pound) dumbbells in their hands? And you know how sometimes you also see runners carrying their iPhones in a hand?
What if there was a product which was both a weight and an iPhone case? Somewhat predictably, given the title of this post, now there is. It’s the ToneFone, and it is billed as “The World’s Heaviest iPhone Case.”
Leitz’s Icon is a label printer for iOS (and other mobile) devices, and it actually looks good enough to be an Apple product – the shape is clean and pretty, yes, but it also looks dead easy to use.
Pyle’s Rocket Torch is a combination Bluetooth speaker and flashlight. It also has an FM radio and a microSD-card slot, plus a carabiner to hang it from your bag, belt or shower head. Yes, shower head. This thing is water resistant too.
Imagine the chaos that could be achieved by connecting three iPhones to a single stereo using a three-way cable splitter, and letting everyone fight for the right to run the party.
Now imagine that you can do the same thing, only wirelessly. That’s the idea behind the 3Play, a Bluetooth receiver from Grace Digital that’ll let you and your friends all share the music you love simultaneously.” Simultaneously!
Remember back in the 1980s and some of the 1990s, when Sony made the coolest stuff around? Tiny Walkmans, awesome Hi8 video cameras and even some decent slimline (PC) laptop computers. Then it all went wrong, when Apple reinvented the Walkman as the iPad.
I’m not trying to say that the new Ultra Premium Hi-Res Bluetooth Speaker is about to turn the company around, but it is a reminder of what we used to love about Sony.
USB Fever’s SuperWide iPhone lens has one unique feature, and you can probably see exactly what it is kist by lookingL the huge sprung loop that holds it on the iPhone and over the lens and makes it easy to slip on and off.
We first glimpsed the Highline way back in 2012, when we reviewed the 30-pin-dock-connector version of the leash for iDevices. Now, back in the future, the Lightning Highline has just launched, helping to save the butterfingered and terminally distracted from losing or smashing their iPhone.
In my review, I described the Ergotron Workfit-A as a terminator arm holding your iMac. The PadDock Pivot Dual Arm Locking Tablet Stand is the same kind of thing, only it’s a Terminator arm holding your iPad.
I’ll admit it. I was about to pass on writing up the OGIO Ruck Pack because it looks like a dorky kids bag. And then I noticed it also looks like the pack on the back of a space suit. And then I saw the pocket on the side, stuffed with my favorite water bottle, the Klean Kanteen, and I was sold. So here it is: The dork-tastic, space-friendly water-carrying Ruck Pack.
Do you get creeped out by the fact that Google reads your emails in order to serve you ads (even though every time you search any web-based email it’s doing the exact same thing)? Then you should leave now, because the Mod Notebook is a service that scans your filled-up paper notebook and sends you back the digital version.
Samsung’s NX Mini camera uses a one-inch sensor – like that inside the Nikon 1 series – only it comes in way cheaper, at $450 or $550, depending on which lens you choose. Other than that , the best description is probably “a lanes and a flip screen, and not much else.”
Photojojo’s Table Dolly is – on the face of things – a super-adjustable way to film professional-looking dolly shots in your kitchen or on your stylish blond-wood parquet floors.
But looked at a different way, it could be a robot dinosaur or a cherry-picker for Lego minifigs.