Kickstarter - page 22

With millions of dollars pledged to all kinds of projects every week, it’s no wonder that Kickstarter has become one of the most popular funding sources for getting a new product off the ground. The process is simple: Start a project, spread the word, then — if your idea is a good one — watch the pledges roll in.

If you’re a budding entrepreneur with a great idea for a Mac or iOS accessory, or even an app or game, then Kickstarter could be the fastest and most effective route to success. Not only is it a great source of funding, but it also helps you establish just how popular your product will be.

Here at Cult of Mac we’ve stumbled across a handful of really outstanding devices that wouldn’t be around if it wasn’t for Kickstarter. But it’s not as easy as it sounds. While creating your project may be pretty straightforward, ensuring it succeeds is hard work.

To help you out, we’ve spoken to a couple of companies who recently used Kickstarter to launch their latest products, and they’ve given us some feedback and a few tips on how to ensure your Kickstarter project is a success.

Stick with photography long enough, and eventually you’ll need a a camera remote so you can trigger your DSLR without touching it.

Trigger Happy, an applaud-worthy idea currently on Kickstarter, let’s you do just that, but with your iPhone and one simple cable instead of one of those expensive, camera-specific triggers.

If you want to take great photos that you can play around with later, you shoot RAW. And if you want to take great video, ready for the kind of post-processing punishment exacted on it by adding visual effects, you also shoot RAW.

However, while you can get a RAW-shooting stills camera for under $500, a RAW-capable video camera is professional only, running to tens or even hundreds of thousands of dollars. Until now. Joe Rubinstein will sell you a Digital Bolex for just $2,500. In the movie world, that’s like finding a Nikon D4 in your cereal box.

The Gymbl Pro is a combo case and tripod for your iPhone 4/S, released last year to great success on Kickstarter. The polycarbonate case has a slot which marries up to a folding, pocket-sized tripod which also doubles as a handgrip. But what of poor Gymbl owners who have a yen to tote their iPhone around their necks like some kind of modern day Flava Flav? Well Gordon Fowler, the man behind the Gymbl, has you covered.

Behold: The Gymbl Latch and Lanyard.

Four quirky creatives in New York want to make tangible those memorable moments snapped with your iPhone at a bar, a concert or your house – and possibly send them to your ex – with device called Instaprint.

They are the brains behind Breakfast, named the top innovative digital agency last year by Mashable, also responsible for a tweeting bike and the Conan Blimp. (Not bad, since the agency is a mere 18-months old.)

Breakfast is now handing the hat around to fund photobooth device Instaprint on Kickstarter, asking for $500,000.

TidyTilt is a nifty earbud cord wrap, multi-position kickstand and mount for iPhone 4 and iPhone 4S that looks a lot like Apple’s iPad Smartcover.

The brainchild of Zahra Tashakorinia and Derek Tarnow, students at the IIT Institute of Design in Chicago, TidyTilt was so popular that its massive overfunding on Kickstarter turned their little project into a business.

CineSquid Suction Mount from Cinetics on Vimeo.

Remember the Cineskates? They were a Kickstarter sensation, a bendy Gorillapod married to three roller skate wheels and useful for anything from smooth dolly shots to crazy bullet-time-like movies. Now Cinetics, the folks behind the Kickstarter project behind the Cineskates have come up with the Cinesquid, a tripod with suction cups for feet.

Like many Apple fans, I love the idea of the an iPod nano watch. I adore the fact that an idle comment from Steve Jobs about how the new nano is so small it can be worn as a watch got turned into a cottage industry of Kickstarters fashioning a multitude of hip new watchbands.

The only thing is I don’t want to wear the damn thing. I’m not a wristwatch kind of guy: I’m the sort of person who prefers pulling something out of his pocket, like my iPhone. So I wonder why it took someone so long to think of this incredible idea. Instead of a wristwatch, why not turn the iPod nano into a pocket watch?

Zooka bills itself as a wireless speaker bar for any of your sound-producing gadgets, but one look will tell you the truth: it’s made for iPads and skinny MacBooks. The Zooka is a silicone cylinder which can work alone, but which also has a slot into which you can slide the edge of your favorite Apple device.

Apple’s designs constantly prove that beauty and practicality can exist in the same place, but that’s clearly not the only way to do things. Take a look at the AQUA TEK S, which manages to be possibly the most practical and the most ugly iPhone case ever. It bills itself as “the first ever battery powered, solar charged, rugged under water iPhone 4/4S case on Kickstarter.”

Decent in-dash stereo systems aren’t just expensive, they make you a target for a break-in… and why even bother with one when your iPhone can do everything a stereo dash can do, and a lot more besides?

Exactly, say the makers of Devium Dash, a new project up on Kickstarter. Instead of some expensive in-dash system that doesn’t do as much as your iDevice, why don’t you just slap your iPhone into the dash when you start driving instead?

If you’re an iOS gamer, there’s no better accessory for your iPhone than a game controller that allows you to use physical controls within your favorite games. And there’s no better game controller than this one, inspired by the retro gamepad from the Nintendo Entertainment System.

I love Apple’s Smart Cover for the iPad 2, and I’ve had one stuck to my device since the day I bought it. It looks good, it protects my display, and it’s useful. I often wonder whether the same kind of concept could work for the iPhone, and it seems TidyTilt has an answer.

TidyTilt is like a Smart Cover for your iPhone 4 or 4S, only much smarter. Not only does it act as a kickstand for your device when you want to type, watch movies, or play games; it provides tidy storage for your earbuds, and a whole lot more.

Here’s a fun idea from Kickstarter: hip headphones with built-in housing for your iPod shuffle.

The HiddenRadio Bluetooth Speaker is the latest project to be setting Kickstarter on fire, and it’s no wonder why. Just look at it! It’s like Jony Ive designed a speaker in his spare time, and decided to throw it up on Kickstarter just for the hell of it.

As far as Kickstarter projects go, this one has definitely piqued our interests. Unlike the “cheap, lightweight afterthoughts” that comprise the vast majority of most iPhone docks, the Elevation Dock looks like it has the potential to be one of the highest quality docks we’ve ever seen.

This Kickstarter project combines an iPad case with a speaker, hiding the speaker in the case’s front cover. Or rather, the speaker is the front cover.

We’ve seen some truly great accessories for the iPhone this year and the SkyLight should should certainly be counted among them. The SkyLight is a sleek, easy to use adapter that can connect an iPhone to a microscope. In an effort to overcome the global shortage in trained healthcare workers, SkyLight’s creators hope to connect doctors and nurses to patients in developing nations and rural areas.

By holding an iPhone steady over the eyepiece where an image is formed, SkyLight makes it incredibly easy to take pictures and video through the microscope. Once recorded, the pictures and videos are then saved on the phone and can be emailed to doctors, shared on social media sites, or saved for later use. Another interesting idea is that with the use of FaceTime doctors can examine samples remotely and provide immediate feedback.

Do you love typing on your iPad, the feel of your digits drumming atop virtualized letters glowing out of slippery glass? No, we thought not: for serious typing, few do, which is why the iPad keyboard case market is doing so well. So I have some haptic problems with this Kickstarter project to bring a wireless multi-touch glass keyboard and mouse to market. Aesthetically, though? Gorgeous.

Just like the Hanfree iPad stand we featured back when it was a Kickstarter pipe-dream (it’s real now though), Dave Culter’s Flote iPad stand blends decor, design and device. The result? An iPad stand that lets you position your iPad anywhere you damn well please — and looks good doing it.

iPhone cases that allow you to leave your wallet at home by making room for your credit cards and cash are becoming increasingly popular. And because they’re popular, there’s a ton of them available. But nearly all of them have one thing in common: they’re made from leather (or a cheap leather lookalike material).

If you’re looking for something a little more robust, check out this Kickstarter project called the CASELLET.

The Tilt by madMINDS from Sulmo Kim on Vimeo.

A cooling stand is traditionally one of the ugliest accessories you can buy for your svelte MacBook Pro, one that’s guaranteed to take all that hard work Apple put into creating a beautiful notebook and just throwing it away. That is, until the TILT came along.

The iPad nano is undoubtedly the coolest wristwatch available if you’re an Apple fanboy, and it has become so popular as a watch that Apple even introduced a number of new clock faces in its latest nano update. However, because it’s an iPod, it’s also very delicate and it doesn’t cope well with water damage. Unless you have the Proof strap — a wrist strap that not only makes your iPod nano waterproof, but also introduces Bluetooth functionality.

We’ve come across some awesome Kickstarter projects for iOS device accessories, and the MobileMount is most certainly up there with the best of them. Its a simple device that uses two suction cups to securely mount your iOS devices — or any device for that matter — to a flat service.

I’ve never found a stylus for the iPad that I’ve really liked. Whether an aluminum tube filled with cheap capacitive foam, or something more beefy like Wacom’s official $35 Stylus, I’ve found that more often than not, iPad stylii are maddeningly unpredictable when it comes to registering the tip of the pen and where a pen stroke actually starts.

That’s why I’m blown away by this demo of the XStylus Touch by Hong Kong inventor Elton Leung. He’s noticed that all styluses have an issue with where the pen stroke starts, and he’s designed an incredible stylus that seems to register on the iPad at the exact pixel when it first comes in contact with the display.