LAS VEGAS, CES 2012 — Four times bigger than last year, and now filling about half the massive north hall of the Las Vegas Convention Center, the iLounge is home to an enormous plethora of iDevice accessories. I weaved and wandered through lanes of the iLounge pondering the products I was seeing, and out of all of what I found filling the massive space, these were the trends that stood out.
LAS VEGAS, CES 2012 – Or maybe it’s that they’re pretending even less. The amount of bling at the Monster “booth” — it was actually more of a compound, complete with a super-secret inner sanctum — would make Snooki (who was at the show) blush. Their three newly released headphones seemed far more focused on fashion than sound; even Monster founder Nole Lee’s Segway (was it a Segway?) rolled around on gold-rimmed wheels. Then there were the booth fashion shows…
Intel wants to be friends with Apple — or more specifically, Apple’s hoard of cash. As the PC industry craters and mobile devices seem to be the future, the chipmaker wants the tech giant to buy its Medfield design. Although Intel if talking, is Apple listening?
Consumers have another reason besides low-cost designer collaborations to mob their favorite retailer. Target confirmed 25 of its largest U.S. stores will offer an expanded line of Apple gear later this year. The stores join Best Buy in catering to crowds of Apple fans looking to buy more than iPods at their local retailer.
LAS VEGAS, CES 2012 — I hate having three different cameras to address various situations in life – iPhone for when I’m lazy, DSLR when I want to pretend I know how to take pretty pictures, and a GoPro for when I’m doing something adventurous. Thankfully it looks like I’m going to be able to discard at least one of those cameras from my bag now that the MiVue is in existence.
For a company not officially at the Las Vegas-based CES, Apple sure does have a huge presence. Not only is the tech giant molding the smartphone and gadget exhibits, but the Cupertino, Calif. firm also overshadows video vendors. Indeed, Apple’s planned entry into the TV business is ‘the elephant in the room’ at the massive technology trade show.
LAS VEGAS, CES 2012 – Not only does Sin City’s newest quickie-wedding chapel look like an Apple store, but the vows are read off an iPad.
For the moment, the chapel is offering only pretend weddings. It’s not yet licensed to perform legally-binding unions. So what happens in Vegas can really stay here. You can “marry” that hottie you met at the club, but you don’t have to give them half your earnings when things inevitably go sour.
Readdle has issued an update to its popular Calendars app for iOS today, introducing an awesome new interface and a whole host of new features that allow you to add events quicker than ever before, sync even faster with Google Calendars, and use special keyboards for snappier calendar entries.
There are still nearly 12 hours to go before Apple’s iPhone 4S makes it debut in China, but hundreds are already lining up outside of five Apple retail stores in the hope that they will be one of the first to get their hands on the fifth-generation device.
If you’re after a new iPhone but you find the new iPhone 4S is just too expensive, and the older iPhone 4 with just 8GB simply isn’t enough, then you might want to head down to your local RadioShack before you settle for something different.
The retailer is still offering the iPhone 4 with 16GB of storage for just $99.99 with a two-year contract, but only while supplies last.
LAS VEGAS, CES 2012 — There are a lot of iPad- and iPhone-connected devices at CES, but OhMiBod’s line of iPad-powered personal massagers are some of the most unusual.
No one was actually trying these out on the CES show floor, but we got some first impressions:
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.
It’s happened to many of us: you’re at work or on vacation and you realize you need something from your Mac at home. There’s nobody at the house to help. By making use of one of the remote desktop solutions on the market, a simple one-time setup can help solve this dilemma:
If my mac is on at home and connected to the internet via a wireless router, and I am at work on either a PC running windows XP sp3 or my mac again connected to the internet via a wireless router is there anyway I can log into my mac at home via the internet and use files etc remotely at work without any input from somebody at home ?
Foxconn workers at an Xbox plant in China threatened a mass suicide earlier this month after the manufacturer reportedly refused to pay compensation it had promised earlier. Today, Microsoft and Foxconn have announced that the dispute has now been resolved.
Chinese sources revealed earlier this week that Apple’s third-generation iPad is now in production and scheduled for a launch in early March. It was reported that the device would sport a long-awaited Retina display supplied by Sharp.
However, that may not be the case. According to a new report from Korea’s Electronic Times, Apple turned down Sharp’s displays after they failed to pass the company’s approval process, and decided to use panels from Samsung and LG Display instead.
Pod2g and his “Dream Team” of fellow iOS hackers seem to be making some pretty decent progress on their much-anticipated A5 jailbreak, promising in their latest blog post that the exploit’s public release is now just “a matter of days” away.
The Pentax WG-1 GPS ($350) is a waterproof, shockproof location-aware camera.
If you’ve never tried a waterproof camera before, it can be quite a jarring experience. Every fibre of your soul tells you that you shouldn’t put electronic gadgets in water, so immersing this beast feels decidedly like the wrong thing to do.
As soon as you’ve done it, though, there’s a rush of delight as you press the on button and the screen lights up, and everything just works as if it were out on dry land.
This is FlickrBucket, a cute one-dollar uploading utility I found on the Mac App Store this week.
UPDATE: iLuv has since clarified the price of the RockWall to be $29.99, not $129.99. iLuv’s rep misspoke during our interview. For $29.99, including Apple charger compatible international plug adapters, this is a very good deal indeed.
LAS VEGAS, CES 2012 – iLuv’s pretty much known for making button-cute accessories at super affordable prices, so when they broke out a mysterious, secret $129.99 device they were keeping away from prying eyes and not on display to the majority of the CES public, my eyes lit up. This must be something special, as awesome as it was a total bargain, even at that price.
“What does it do?” I asked earnestly. “Some sort of Bluetooth-enabled, app-controlled atom smasher? An iOS-compatible home Lasik kit? Is it GOD? Is God in that box?”
Nope. Meet iLuv’s seemingly inexplicable, $100+ USB wall charger.
What’s this? Android news on Cult of Mac?! Who the hell cares?! Maybe you don’t, maybe you do. Point is: these are a few of the popular topics going on in the Android world today. Maybe you’d like to know what the competition is up to, or perhaps your aunt received a Kindle Fire she needs to update. Regardless of the reason, having a resource such as Cult of Android allows you to learn more about what’s going on in the ecosystem powered by the world’s leading mobile OS.
LAS VEGAS, CES 2012 – Wandering the showfloor of CES as a juiced-out gadget writer, charging solutions can take on a bizarrely exotic appeal. That external battery pack you passed over the press release for with a yawn months ago can suddenly become this season’s must-have gadget, all because your MacBook’s battery icon is blinking red, all the outlets are taken in the press room and you’ve got three stories to file.
As such, it’s hard to tell if I like iLuv’s DreamTraveler so much because I’ve got a desert wanderer’s thirst for electricity or because it’s genuinely a sexy, useful product. Certainly the Cult of Mac team could have used one in the press room this week. But I’m definitely leaning toward ‘sexy’ and ‘useful’, because the DreamTraveler isn’t just a good looking power strip, it’s also a dock that can charge six Apple gadgets at a time from just one outlet.
LAS VEGAS, CES 2012 — Odds are that giving away free stuff will attract people to your CES booth no matter how high the level of suckiness of said free product. Earlier this morning Case-Mate wasn’t even giving away free cases, they were giving away fragments of free cases, but their booth was still mobbed by an army of swag seeking CES attendees, proving once again that freebies and booth-girls are still a viable way to get your product a momentary flash of attention.
LAS VEGAS, CES 2012 – Amazing to think Sony has never offered an armature-driven earphone before; now that they are, they’re diving in huge time with eleven models. Aussie new kid on the block Audiofly just have one in their new lineup, but it’s a doozy, and it sounded absolutely stunning; we fully expect these to be a huge hit.
Apple has always been discounted as a major player in terms of PC market share, despite the fact that competitors try desperately to copy Apple products.
The latest market share analysis from Gartner for 2011’s Q4 reveals that Apple was the only PC vendor in the US to see actual growth year over year.
LAS VEGAS, CES 2012 — Sennheiser is attacking the audio market with two exciting new headphones: the high-end HD 700s, and the mid-tier anodized-aluminum-crafted Amperior. Both have taken me to my happy place.