Back in February, I reviewed the The SurfacePad from Twelve South and called it the “Best iPhone Case Ever.” And had it stayed pristine and continued working like it did for the first few weeks, that would be it.

But it didn’t. The lovely, minimalist leather cover certainly kept working, but while it might be a great design for something like an iPad, for an iPhone – which is constantly being shoved in and out of pockets – it’s just too fragile. That, and it sucks for taking photos.

Fitbug is a company that makes exercise accessories that work with iPhone apps. Fitbit is also a company that makes exercise accessories that work with iPhone apps. Their names are similar, and so are their products. It’s kind of like they’re the same company, except they’re totally not, and that’s the problem.

The confusion between the names of the two companies has really started to get under Fitbug’s skin, so it’s decided to sue Fitbit for trademark infringement to decided who gets to be the fittest company in the U.S.

Ah, the iCar. We’ve been waiting for Apple to make a real one for years, ever since they transformed a Porsche into one way back in 1980. And we know Steve Jobs was game.

So the promise that Volkswagen is preparing an iBeetle might, at first, seem of interest to Apple fans and auto enthusiasts. But don’t get too excited, because the iBeetle is lame.

Earlier this week, we wrote about Grabby, a rad little Cydia tweak that let you extend the lockscreen camera launcher into a quickbar for up to five favorite apps.

Here’s a similar idea. Atom is an upcoming Cydia tweak that is set to be released this weekend which allows you to unlock your iPhone directly to up to six different apps, just by dragging the on-screen ‘locked’ icon to one of six positions.

We’re pretty confident the iPhone 5S will look almost identical to the iPhone 5, but its insides are likely to be a little different. Recent rumors have claimed Apple could add a faster processor to the device, along with fingerprint technology and improved cameras. And one of those cameras may have been leaked.

The picture above shows what is believed to be a front-facing camera for the iPhone 5S.

Apple’s share price may be falling quickly at the moment, but company co-founder Steve Wozniak is confident it’ll rise again thanks to future products that will “surprise and shock us all.” Speaking at the Login technology conference in Vilnius, Lithuania, Woz said “the stock price is a little low right now,” but notes that industry profits “are still with Apple.”

Do you think Siri instantly forgot all those strange questions and requests you asked it the moment you pressed your home button, then you’re wrong. Siri remembers. Well, Apple does; the Cupertino company has confirmed this week that it stores every Siri request you make for up to two years.

Alfred 2.0 is an amazing customizable app launcher, email sender, system commander that is free for the basic uses and only £15 for more advanced features in an Alfred add-on Powerpack.

One of these latter abilities lets you store and retrieve anything in your Mac’s clipboard history. Anything you’ve saved to the clipboard is accessible from within Alfred. Better yet, you can even store persistent snippets, turning Alfred into its own text expansion system.

A new survey conducted by ChangeWave Research has found that 19% of U.S. consumers say they’re likely to purchase Apple’s much-anticipated “iWatch” if and when it becomes available. The demand has been attributed to “Apple’s track record of delivering ultra-convenient, easy to use products with perceived ‘cool factor’.”

Evernote has just updated Skitch for both the Mac and iOS. And what an update! The headline feature is PDF annotation (premium account required, 30-day trial for new users), a feature which could make the app useful to more than just bloggers marking up screenshots.

Ka-chunk, ka-chunk. Ker-Ching! That’s the sound of micro budgeting, and doesn’t it sound like fun? That’s because it is – with Cents, a super-simple new iPhone app for tracking your daily expenses.

Slugline is a new app for screenwriters from Stu Maschwitz (movie maker, visual effects superstar and guy named Stu). It’s a Fountain-based app for writing movies and outputting them in industry-standard Final Draft format, but in use it’s more like a simple plain-text Markdown editor.

Got one of Fujifilm’s shiny new X100S rangefinder-style cameras? Or another of the company’s digicams with the fancy X-Trans sensor inside? Then go hit up your Software Update and install the new Digital Camera RAW Compatibility Update.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O70X7JY4re0&feature=youtu.be

It won’t let your kid paint with light in the traditional, photographic sense — using a light source to burn magical images into a photograph.

Instead, Griffin’s new Crayola Light Marker turns an iPad into a canvas that’s transformed with light — a form of light painting, and just as magical.

The release of Iron Man 3 for Android and iOS is almost upon us, and Gameloft sent us a sneak peak of the 18 different Iron Man armor suits available to the player in the game.

These gorgeous images augment the trailer Gameloft released of their endless runner (the category of game Iron Man 3 falls into) last month. The game’s out on April 25; no word about price yet. More suits to get you drooling below.

Personal social networking app, Path, just released a new icon set into its sticker shop today, called “Iconic Bites.” While the stickers are adorable little bite-sized, pixel-chic representations of food and such, what really makes them cool is that they were created by none other than Susan Kare, the designer of the original Macintosh system icons.

The Path blog posted an interesting interview with her, as well, in which she talks about how her long experience in the design industry has influenced her current designs.

About a month ago, Amazon bought Goodreads, a popular social network for reviewing and recommending books. The reason was obvious: Goodreads in the Kindle Store. But what a new report shows is that the buyout was also a move to steal Goodreads away from a potential partnership with Apple.

A lot has been said lately about the iPhone’s demise, and thanks to global smartphone marketshare numbers, you’d think the Apple-hating Negative Nancys are right. But then if you look at the U.S. marketshare numbers, it’s a completely different story.

Benedict Evans created the chart above based on AT&T and Verizon’s recent sales figures. It’s pretty clear that the iPhone has been the only smartphone that is actually increasing sales for the networks, while Android buyers are probably people who just go into the shop and buy whatever looks good.

There’re few photo apps better than MacPhun’s FX Photo Studio for the casual photographer. It’s got a pretty interface, it’s super-simple to use and it’s stuffed with way more filters than any other iPhone app at the App Store (pretty sure this is true; if you think you know of one with more filters, let me know). Normally the app is $2, but today it’s free.

They say that distance makes the heart grow fonder, but for a lot of people, Snapchatting promiscuous pics and Skyping just isn’t enough. Condom maker Durex is ready to help you out though by adding a new product for your sexual repertoire.

As its first experiment with wearable tech, Durex has created “Fundawear.” It’s a line of underwear that’s been embedded with tons of tiny little vibrators around your naughty bits region that are then synched up with an iPhone app so your partner can “touch you over the Internet.” There’s a mens and womens pair, and they’re pretty much perfect for couples who are long distance and wanting to get kinky, or creeps that want to masturbate in public using only their iPhone.

Here’s the video Durex created to introduce Fundawear:

Mailbox for iPhone lets you send each email to a list, set it to snooze for a certain number of hours or days, or even just archive the email if you want.

In addition, you can mark emails as read or unread, and star them, just like in Gmail itself. THis gives you yet another way to sort and classify emails on the go, which also transfers easily to the web version of Gmail, as well.

Taking pictures with an iPad is a no-no. I don’t care if you’re Spike Lee, just don’t do it. Ever.

The only time it is acceptable to take pictures in a public place with your iPad, is if it’s going to save your life by preventing a softball from ramming through your skull.

That’s exactly what happened to this older gentleman at a University of Northern Iowa softball game. He was trying to capture the fierce action of the game, when an errant foul ball came screaming at his face. The backstop netting couldn’t stop the ball in time, so his iPad stepped up and intercepted the ball to save the man’s life.

Check out the video:

I was going to ditch the standard review format for this post and instead make a gallery of different objects hung on my belt Using the neat little Spider Monkey accessory holster.

That was until I discovered that the adhesive tab that helps hold the Monkey’s Tab onto the target accessory is not reusable. Well, that might not be strictly true. It might well be reusable, but I will never find out because it is almost certainly unremovable.

When we’ve grown tired of flinging Angry Birds through space, Hoth, Brazil, and everywhere else, Cut the Rope has always been a great fallback option for a quick, fun iOS game. Now it’s getting even better with time travel.

ZeptoLabs just released the latest installment in its Cut the Rope series called Cut the Rope: Time Travel. The new game adds the dimension of time travel to increase the complexity of ways to get your little Om Nom’s some candy. Now instead of having one Om Nom to feed, you get an ancient ancestor to worry about too while you explore locations like the Middle Ages, the Renaissance, a Pirate Ship, Ancient Egypt, Greece, and the Stone Age.

Here’s a gameplay trailer:

As the head of Apple’s design team, Jony Ive has been one of the most influential figures in tech over the last two decades. He helped create the iMac, iPod, iPhone, iPad and slew of other Apple products that have hit shelves over the last few years.

Now Jony’s putting his mark on Apple’s software too, which makes you wonder if there’s any area of design Jony can’t master. Time just released its list of the 100 most influential People in the world, and Ive is the only Apple employee that made the list.

Here’s what Bono had to say about Sir Jony: