iPad accessories - page 21

You don’t have to be an artist to create one of the coolest DIY Apple accessories around, but if you want to use your iPad while working out on your exercycle, stairmaster or treadmill at home it couldn’t hurt.

Of course, you could drop a lot of dough on a commercial device that may or may not perform up to expectations in the real world, or even import top gear that looks like something out of a sci-fi fantasy.

But why not look around the house for a few simple materials that, with a bit of creative ingenuity, you can employ to do the job just as well?

LAS VEGAS, CES 2011 — Joby released two new iPad stands yesterday. One borrowed from their line of bendable camera tripods, the other was more unusual, and took a page from the Japanese art of origami.

The GorillaMobile Ori ($80)  for iPad is made from a material called Hylite — a blend of aluminum and polypropylene — which felt pretty light and is supposedly super-tough. The origami-inspired design gives the case an intricate look (so many cutouts) and allows for a continuous hinge that can adjust the viewing angle to practically any position within its range. it’s also equipped with a swivel hinge that allows the iPad to be easily switched between portrait and landscape positions — or even turn the iPad into a steering wheel for racing games. Pretty cool.

A company called Ten One Design has announced a $25 joystick for iPad called Fling that attaches to the screen with suction cups.

The Fling goes on top of the on-screen controls, and replaces your direct finger or thumb. The joystick is mostly clear plastic, so you can see through it.

Does this defeat the whole purpose of using an iPad for gaming, which is direct touch on an elegant surface? Or is this just cool?

Fling is available for pre-order Jan. 6.

You knew it was coming.  Currently VaporWare – and possibly HumorWare – Golden Cow Brands has announced the iToiletStand (aka Angled Stand), a waist high, foldable stand for iPads and other tablets which does just what you think:

Where can I use it? by the bath, couch, bed, in the kitchen or garage, by the toilet (yep, take a bit more time for yourself), next to your chair while playing a musical instrument, in hospitals, next to wheelchairs, somewhat near your barbecue grill, next to your lounge or lawn chair, next to your office desk, use it while giving presentations at school, during meetings or conferences, and the list goes on…

The implied cautionary warning of somewhat near your barbecue grill applies equally to anticipated bathroom usage.  The company says cost will be cheap enough for you to purchase several for use around the house, and shipping is anticipated to begin in early 2011

Too bad they missed the 2010 Holiday Shopping Season…

[via BornRich]

Here’s our 2010 Year in Review of the best 10 hardware peripherals for your iPhone or iPad that we’ve come across in the last twelve months.

If you missed any of these or didn’t get a chance to check them out for some reason or another, don’t fret — all of them are still available and worth a look.

10. AR Drone Parrot

It’s going to be one lucky kid who gets this iDevice-controllable wonder

The AR Drone Parrot is a quadricopter that’s controlled by the iPhone, iPod touch or the iPad. It can be flown indoors or outside and features many sensors, including a front camera ,vertical camera and an ultrasound altimeter. High-tech sensors make it simple for kids to pilot. The AR Drone can also be used in video games, such as AR FlyingAce, a dogfight between two AR Drones.

The AR Drone Parrot is available from Amazon for $299.99

With the holidays now only days away, we are all starting to think about the true meaning of the holidays – food and drink, and copious amounts of the stuff! Whether you are in charge of the full roast on Christmas day, or just the cranberries, having a helping hand is always appreciated.

Being the lovely people we are, we have put together a list of the best apps and accessories for both iPhone and iPad that can help your holiday season be as full flavoured and stress free as possible!

Apple’s Camera Connection Kit for iPad is a pretty useful set of dongles for the on-the-go photographer, but it does seem somewhat redundant: why did Apple need to display two different dongles when it could have designed one dongle that read USB and SD cards simultaneously?

Such was the thinking that lead us to admire August’s 2-in-1 Camera Connection Kit for iPad, which smashed together both dongles into one converging, dual-purpose accessory.

Pretty neat, but the fancy lads over at MIC have just one-upped the 2-in-1 Camera Connection Kit… literally. Meet the 3-in-1 Camera Connection Kit for iPad, replete with a USB port, an SD card slot and a microSD card reader.. all for only $29.90. Take that!

If you have your hands on Apple’s latest must-have gadget the iPad, you’ve probably wondered how to keep other people’s hands off it.

Sure, you can password protect the screen. But that’s not going to do much if someone decides to pick up the handy tablet and run with it.

Enter the iPad lock. Well, it’s actually a $40 case with room for a standard computer lock (sold separately.) The hard clear plastic case has a prominent slot on the side, then you attach a lock which you need to secure to a table or other stationary too-big-to-walk-off-with item.

$300 is a lot to spend for an iPad satchel, but if you’ve just got a pressing GQ shoot coming up, Palmer & Sons’ exquisite iPad hip bag is probably the most fashionable way of toting your iOS tablet around we’ve seen yet.

It’s made of Havana Brown leather (with Italian cognac available to order) and features brass rivets and panic clasp closures throughout. Just don’t call it a murse. Mad Man Palmer and his psychopathic, skin-happy sons don’t like that at all.

Colorware’s been doing a great job of painting the cool and latest gadgets for almost 10 years, but they’ve never actually released a product before. Colorware’s Grip for iPad is, in fact, their very first product. And props to them for it, as it’s possibly the most polished “case” for the iPad out there.

I love the almost Trapper Keeper like aesthetic of the Mophie Workbook Case, which not only protects your iPad but lets you prop it up horizontally at almost any angle, perfect for typing or watching video. Sure, unlike my old Trapper Keeper, it features a synthetic leather veneer, but for some reason, I less want to put my iPad in it than lock in a bunch of cool robot folders magic-markered in block capitals with their dedicated subject.

Also unlike a Trapper Keeper is the price: a Mophie Workbook will cost you $59.95 if you want one.

While we all wait for the final version of iOS 4.2 to arrive, the iPad’s inability to multitask is growing increasingly obnoxious — especially when our iPhones are humming along in 4.1. Worse still, an iPad running 4.2 is obviously using a multitasking scheme well-suited to an iPhone, not a tablet. In spite of increased screen real estate, there’s no way to keep a video window popped open in an unused portion of the screen in Safari, or to keep a Skype dialer overlaid on other tasks. No one wants a full desktop experience, but an iPhone-sized widget that can be moved around the screen would make the iPad truly special.

Julian Horsey of Geeky Gadgets has created a hack that shows what the future could hold, if Apple loses all sense of design and taste in the near future, with a clever clip to attach an iPhone to an iPad. With this two-headed monstrosity, you can multitask exactly as you would want to. This isn’t for the faint of heart — not because the hack is particularly difficult, but because you would actually have to be seen with it in public.

Via Geeky Gadgets

Over the past few months, we’ve certainly seen our fair share of cases grafting a working keyboard onto the iPad. We love the idea, but we’ve yet to see a really solid execution.

Perhaps the PADACS iPad Keyboard Case is the, well, iPad Keyboard Case we’ve been waiting for. Unlike the competition, it features a hard physical keyboard with firm plastoc keys instead of softer, rubbery ones. That should make the PADACS more satisfying to hammer out prose on from a tactile perspective, but those paranoid about scratching their iPad display may want to stay clear.

Perhaps the most noteworthy thing about the PADACS iPad Keyboard Case, though, is that the Bluetooth keyboard comes with dedicated keys for Select All, Copy, Cut, Paste, Blank Screen, Slide Show and Search… as well as Command, Option, Function and Control Keys. That’s something I don’t think the competition actually has, and puts the PADACS about on the same level of functionality as iPad’s own $69 Keyboard Dock… albeit at a $30 premium.

[via Ubergizmo]

BMW will soon offer an “official” iPad integration kit to allow backseat passengers the use of Apple’s magical new device to watch movies and play games in its automobiles, according to reports from the 2010 Paris Motor Show. Of course, Engadget hates it, but some may wait until BMW announces price and availability before drawing conclusions.

Perhaps if they offered free drinks and salty snacks, too, it could become a hit.

Finally! After years spent missing a gold opportunity as geeks everywhere scraped out the guts of their own pocket notebooks in order to protectively ensconce their iPhones or purchased knock-off simulacrums like the Dodocase, Moleskine has finally come up with its own set of iOS device cases, allowing you to officially disguise your iPhone or iPad as one of the “legendary notebooks” favored by “Picasso, Chatwin and Van Gogh.”

The only problem is that Moleskine seems to have retained the notebook functionality of their cases, making these awkwardly shaped and conceived. Open any of these cases to use your iOS device and you’re going to be dealing with an irritating sheath of pages fluttering around. It’s bulky and it’s awkward.

For years, Colorware has made a business by taking the prized gadgets of individuals with — perhaps — more money than taste and slathering them in multi-chromatic hues as if they were color-blind hussies. It’s strange, then, to see them entering the iPad case market, but so they are with their latest product: Grip for iPad.

This is gorgeous.

Sherwood + Meister’s Block 22 iPad stand is carved fro a block of kiln-dried Ipê, lending it a resilient and waterproof build and a handsome natural patina, which in the Block 22’s cases is supplemented with a light finish.

The stand aspect of the Block 22 works about how you’d expect: you just slot your tablet into the 22-degree notch in either portrait or landscape. What I like more though is the round bowl in the back to hold ear buds, connector cable or car keys: it’s a subtle flourish, but an incredibly useful one.

This is just incredibly handsome design, but it’s the price that’s the handsomest single aspect of the Block 22: it’ll only cost you a mere $35.

[via Gadget Lab]

The Wallee is both a hard case for iPad as well as a simple and efficient wall mounting solution. It allows you to use your iPad throughout your home. It’s one of the best solutions out there, and delivers both on style and functionality. The Wallee is a gadget that is so well-engineered that I often forget about it. It has just blended its way into my everyday life – just like the iPad itself.

When Apple first unveiled the iPad earlier this year, my dirty secret was that I was less excited about the tablet itself — which innerly I dismissed as just a big iPod Touch — than I was about finally having a use for the gorgeously vintage leather brown courier bag I had picked up at the local flea market months previous for a song, and agonized ever since over something to do with.

Over time, my allegiances have shifted: I love everything about my iPad with a complete passion, where as my bag has become a hated symbol of love crippled by broken promises, like a woman you wait until your wedding night for whose legs fall off mid-coitus. That metaphor isn’t actually as utterly insane as you might think, because my once treasured courier bag’s clasps continuously rip off under the weight of the bag’s contents, and no matter how I might reaffix them, they just won’t stay on.

Meet the iPad courier bag that is going to get me to chuck my old one in the garbage: the Cobra Courier XS, a sleek and sultry bag crafted from black 1680 dernier ballistic nylon and trimmed with the most supple of Nappa leather. Gentlement, this is the kind of bag you buy an iPad for, and I’m even happy with its price… a respectable $145.

The puppet version of Walt Mossberg shows you how to make an iPad stylus from a pen, scissors, tape and the wrapper from a protein bar in this video resulting in the stylus pictured above.
Not a bad idea — if you’re tired of cleaning up sticky finger marks from your magical device. Skip the corny jokes and head to about 1:42 for the details on how to make the stylus.

Not a puppet person? You can probably figure it out with the sound off, too.

If you make one, let us know how it works out.

While this Etch-A-Sketch case for the iPad brings back all sorts of fuzzy memories of early-80s morning spent meticulously squiggling drawings of Optimus Prime in sharp ninety degree angles on the first tablet I ever owned, I can’t help but be disappointed by the vestigial nature of the knobs.

Surely if you’re going to go to all the trouble of licensing the coveted Etch-A-Sketch brand, you should go the whole hog, hook the knobs up to the dock connector and use them to interface with an official Etch-A-Sketch app. I’d easily spend twice as much as this case’s $40 asking price for that functionality, especially if I could finally save my aluminum powder masterpieces for future generations to admire.

It’s still a fitting fusion of brands, though. I’m hard pressed to identify the most magical tablet I ever owned, my iPad or my first Etch-A-Sketch… and come to think of it, they have more than that in common, since my delinquent (and now drunken) brother recently proved that just as he did with my Etch-A-Sketch so many years ago, he also enjoys bursting into the room when I’m playing with my iPad, ripping it from my hands and insanely shaking it above his head as he fills the air with his cruel, taunting laughter. Ah, memories.

There are currently hundreds of cases available for the iPad, in all sorts of shapes, colors, and sizes, but is the official Etch A Sketch case from Headcase not the coolest you’ve ever seen?

Based on the world’s favorite drawing toy from Ohio Art, the Etch A Sketch iPad case is made from impact resistant plastic that will help shield accidental drops, and features a felt backing to protect your device from scratches while it’s inside. It also boasts rubber feet, a retractable kickstand, and strategically placed windows that allow access to all of the iPad’s buttons and ports, including the ambient light sensor.

It’s impressively realistic, right down to the gold paint on the Etch A Sketch writing, and it should be for an officially licensed product. Although incredibly cool, it will set you back a nice $39 – slightly more than a real Etch A Sketch.

[via TUAW]

The blog AutoSpies.com captured pictures at the Paris Motor Show of BMW’s new replacement for the old-and-busted rear-seat DVD screens: Apple iPad cradles that rotate, and support both portrait and landscape orientations. No, this isn’t just some concept. It’s the new hotness.

The cradle debuted on the new BMW X3, but will be available for all other model series starting in the Spring.

The iPad is a beautiful device and a well-constructed case is a must have. The ‘Happy Cover’ from design house Atelier Kurth aims to meet our case needs, all the while delivering retro style that sets it apart from the masses.

Case and battery manufacturer Mophie has just launched the Juice Pack Powerstation — a one stop iOS charging station.

It’s 3,600mAh capacity  means it is more than capable of fully recharging either iPad or iPhone (including iPhone 4), which will bring the possibility of going days without touching a power point.

The Powerstation has a pair of USB ports, one used to charge your device and the other for charging the battery itself. At 2.86 x 4.31 x 0.65 inches, and weighing somewhere around a pound, it is not the most portable of devices. You would be hard pressed to find a pocket big enough to lug this around in, but that said it will comfortably fit in most bags.

The Mophie Juice Pack Powerstation for iOS devices is available now direct from the Mophie site for $99.95. Full review as soon as we get our hands on one.