Admit it. You took one look at the tiny Satechi Bluetooth speaker up there in the photo and thought “This is going to be a piece of junk.” It probably won’t help your hastily formed opinion if I tell you that it costs just $30.
Don’t worry. I thought the same. I only had the PR people send me one so I could tease, and write a mean but hilarious review about this obviously crappy little speaker. It turns out that I was dead wrong.
Yesterday, if I had suffered a grievous accident involving some kind of heavy farm machinery, and my fingers were mangled to leave only a single, stubby nubbin where previously I had sported ten beautifully slender digits, I’d still have been able to count the entirety of half-decent iPad blogging apps on one hand.
Today, though, I’d have to start counting on my toes, as Black Pixel software, the company behind Apple award-winning app Versions, had launched Posts, and you might like to call it the Reeder of blog publishing.
The WanderFolio is a new iPad case from Speck that combines a form-fitting cradle with a sleek, faux leather cover. Its special feature is that its front cover opens up to reveal a series of six “hideaway” pockets, designed to house your documents, cash, and credit cards while you’re on the go.
The Tiki, from Blue Mic ($59), is a compact USB microphone designed to give you great audio for Skype calls and voice notes in rooms with even moderate ambient noise. And while Blue is known for creating mics that sound as good as they look, the Tiki’s beauty is only skin deep.
Twelve South is really good at making attractive, beautifully packaged and well marketed accessories for Apple lovers.
Often, their accessories seem born from a small idea — what if your MacBook could look like a book, or what if you could attach your iPad to an arm connected to your Mac — but through excellence in execution, these small ideas quickly become indispensible.
The BackPack, first released in late 2009, is such an indispensible small idea: a little shelf to for your iMac or Apple Display. It doesn’t sound like much, but if you’ve ever struggled with a way to manage the external drives or devices connected to your desktop, that little aluminum shelf quickly became such an integral element to your Mac that it’s as if Apple had built one into every Mac.
Now here comes the BackPack 2, and it’s better than the original in every way.
It has the word “cox” in the name, and you can play with it whilst naked in the bathroom, but that’s where the childish jokes end. The ECOXPRO is a waterproof speaker with a snug and safe chamber inside that will fit your iPhone or iPod, along with your cash and keys, all the while blasting out the tunes to everyone trying to relax on the beach.
If there were ever a medal for Most Staggering Misnomer, the iPhone would find itself in serious contention for gold; the little glass slab is so stuffed with useful functions it makes the “phone” element of its name ridiculously misleading. Consider the action-packed roles my iPhone has filled over the years: Bicycle computer; running partner; navigator; wilderness scout; survival guide; weather advisor; and visual story-telling tool, not to mention being able to score all these adventures to music. And yeah, it makes calls too.
The iPhone is the most indispensible piece of hardware since man discovered sharp rocks. Problem is, the iPhone is also a fragile weakling, easily damaged by sharp rocks, gravity or water — things that exist in copious amounts around precisely the places you’d want to use the iPhone to adventure with.
The people at LifeProof, however, have recognized this paradox, and they think they have a solution. They’ve come up with a quiver of clever, well-designed, mission-specific exoskeletons that work as a seamless, modular system, all designed around the core armor: a lithe, shock-resistant, fully sealed (yes, waterproof) iPhone 4/s case. And for the most part, it works brilliantly.
At this year’s Consumer Electronics Show in Vegas, the only thing I was hunting down more than free drinks and after-parties, was power outlets. Yes sir, I love my purdy white iPhone 4S, but on days of heavy use, I find I need to charge it two times or more before the day is through.
The Dual USB Power Bank from Verbatim (about $65), provides a a massive amount of portable power that should keep anyone from outlet-hunting in the inky-shadows of Vegas convention halls. But the question is, how does it perform while charging two connected devices or the power-hungry new iPad?
The new Zaggfolio keyboard and case for the iPad 3 is a very weird little number. At first glance it looks like any other folio case, a protective book which holds the iPad in one side and has a keyboard embedded behind the front cover. But this one is modular, with a removable keyboard. And it comes in colors, although the plastic used to do this looks like it has been cut by (a shaky, alcoholic) hand.
And if you want to use the case without the keyboard (which is actually possible, as they’re available separately) then you’re going to end up with the dumbest-looking case around.
Despite all this, the Zaggfolio is actually pretty great.
This isn’t the smallest headset. In fact, Motorola’s Elite Sliver Bluetooth Headset ($130) is actually bulkier than many other personal BT headsets. Its trick, though, is to hide most of the bulk behind the user’s ear, leaving just a sliver — hence the name — of technology visbile.
But the Sliver isn’t just a one-trick pony; its case also doubles as a battery that will top off the Sliver when the headset is housed in the case (which actually does triple duty as a charger).
It’s hard to believe that it was just a little more than a year ago that Apple released OS X Lion. Only twelve months later, and we’re now staring right down the maw of Apple’s ninth major release of Mac OS X: Mountain Lion.
OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion signifies a new approach on Apple’s part towards OS X updates: instead of going years between major releases, Cupertino is trying to take the rapid release approach that has worked so well for them with iOS and apply it to the Mac.
Mountain Lion, then, feels in many ways less like OS X 10.8 than OS X 10.7.5: a smaller, more tightly focused update continuing what OS X Lion started, taking iOS’s best ideas and bringing them to Mac.
Thanks to major breakthrough features like iCloud syncing, Notification Center, Sharing, AirPlay Mirroring and more, there’s less of a distinction in Mountain Lion between the Mac and iOS than ever. But is that a good thing, and how will it change the way you use your Mac?
Few camera bags are built keep your camera gear safe while you hike, bike, and conquer the wilderness like the manly man that you are. But the Flipside Sport 15L All-Weather camera bag from Lowepro ($135) was designed to do exactly that, and comes standard with some tricks you won’t find on your everyday camera sack.
This is the uNu Ex-Era battery case for iPhone 4 and 4S. It offers a degree of flexibility you won’t find in most other battery cases, although that flexibility comes with a drawback – namely that the case doesn’t feel as robust as some of its less flexible rivals. But you can’t have everything, all the time.
We bumped into neophyte Australian headphones-maker Audiofly in January, during a press-only event at this year’s Consumer Electronics Show, and gave two models in the four-model lineup a whirl. Their mid-level AF45 set sounded great for $50; but the next one I tried — the top-of-the-line AF78 ($200) — left me slack-jawed with disbelief; its sound knocked my socks off, even amid the cacophony of noisy journalists.
What makes the AF78 unusual is its speaker arrangement.
Many mid-to-high-end canalphones are powered by tiny armature speakers, while moving coil drivers are found pretty much everywhere except the very high end. Armatures are generally better at producing clean highs and mids, but can lack deep bass; moving coils, on the other hand, are generally not as good at reproducing the clarity of an armature. But the AF78 is part of an elite group of models — like the Scosche IEM856m I reviewed last year — that employ both a moving coil speaker and a balanced armature in each ear, in an attempt to give the listener the best of both worlds. And it works spectacularly.
The Speck FabShell Luxe is a form-fitting hard shell for the iPhone 4 and the iPhone 4S that aims to stand out and be unique with a genuine leather trim that coats the sides and the back of the case.
Its reinforced, one-piece construction promises to be super strong and shock absorbent, protecting your device from scratches, scuffs, and drops. It features rubber buttons for your sleep/wake button and volume rocker, and provides access to your mute switch, headphone jack, camera, and dock connector.
The FabShell Luxe comes in black, “cognac” (tan), burgundy, and “hunter green,” and offers a one-year warranty. But is it worth its $50 price tag?
If you use your MacBook with a Thunderbolt Display at home or at the office, and you don’t use your MacBook’s display as a secondary monitor, then a Henge Dock is a great way to keep your desk neat and tidy.
Available for all recent MacBooks, MacBook Airs, and MacBook Pros from 11 to 17 inches — with prices ranging from $55 to $75 — it provides you with a place to dock your MacBook in a vertical position so that it takes up as little space as possible. Its integrated ports mean you can still all of your notebook’s USB ports, its MagSafe connector, audio jack, and more.
The Henge Dock promises to be the “first truly comprehensive docking station solution for Apple’s line of notebook computers” There are some things it could do better, however.
Most camera bags today offer a big pocket or pouch you can use to keep safe your motley crew of memory cards and batteries, but I really hate digging through a man-purse full of photo nicknacks just to find the SD card I need. Worse, in my years as a photographer, I can’t count how many times I’ve misplaced or lost entirely items from my conglomerate of memory cards because I end up just throwing them somewhere in my bag.
The SD Pixel Pocket Rocket (PPR for short, $15.75) and DSLR Battery Holder 4 (DBH 4, $16.50) from ThinkThank Photo aim to fix those storage woes by keeping your ample nacelles and secure disks stored and stashed in their own teensy little wallets.
Hmmpph! Their own wallets? It’s a wacky notion, to be sure — but I think it’s working!
Brookstone sells the aptly-named “Bluetooth Keyboard Pro with Leather Case for iPad Tablets.” While I have to think that a better name could have been thought of, don’t let the genericness fool you. This case actually packs some surprises.
While no one should consider dropping $150 on an iPad case without good reason, Brookstone does deliver some features to make it worth checking out. Namely, the case comes with a full size Bluetooth keyboard that can be detached effortlessly and reattached with magnets. And that, my friend, opens up a world of possibilities.
It seems a tad unfair to be reviewing Waterfield’s Daily Outback Tote in the height of summer. Mid-July on the East Coast is particularly unforgiving toward large, leather items. When the entire city seems to be melting, the last thing you want on your sweaty arm are two handles of thick, sumptuous hide.
But while the Outback may not be best when paired with seersucker, it would look incredible holding a thermos and a stadium blanket come fall. And an extra wool sweater. And an iPad. A few books, a picnic, and a pair of gloves, even. Oh, didn’t you know? The Outback can hold everything. It’s a contemporary interpretation of Mary Poppins’s carpet bag.
The Touchfire is a weird little gadget, a silicone skin which covers your iPad’s touchscreen keyboard with a floppy membrane that partially simulates a real, physical keyboard. Launched over a year on Kickstarter, the Touchfire finally goes on sale today. I have been testing one out for the past couple of weeks. Is it worth the $50 asking price? Well, that depends.
The PixelSkin HD Wrap ($50) is an iPad (third-generation) case from Speck that promises to be “the perfect iPad folio case for anyone looking for lightweight protection, secure grip and pixelicious style.” It’s made from a flexible TPU that’s impressively robust, and provides full-body protection to your iPad with a number of nifty features.
A long time ago, before this site was born, we reviewed the Altec Lansing BackBeat 906 Bluetooth headphones, and liked ’em. Plantronics had their own identical version of the 906, as they had owned Plantronics since 2005 (the two companies parted ways about the time the 906 was released).
The Plantronics BackBeat Go ($100) is an evolution of the 906. Same principle — wireless (meaning there’s no wire conecting the player with the headset) music and calls in a compact form via the magic of Bluetooth — but in an even smaller and more svelte form factor. Should be even more fantstic, right? Let’s take a look.
Not so long ago, I reviewed a beautiful new DSLR bag from ThinkTank Photo called the Retrospective 5. I loved it, and it has been my favorite DSLR day-bag ever since.
But the Retrospective 5 is only able to carry a DSLR and a lens or two, so often times, I need to slug along my iPad in yet another pack. I hate that.
No longer! ThinTank’s new Retrospective 7 camera bag ($157) allows me to carry my photo gear along with either my iPad or an 11-inch Macbook Air, all living together in perfect harmony.
Wood is the perfect complement to tech. As mere consumers, wood calms us whilst surrounding more complicated hardware. It provides warmth. It is accessible. And it looks brilliant.
I was an early adopter. The television I grew up with was a wood-blocked behemoth that took both parents to move across our jungle of shag carpet; a task embarked upon only once a year, when we needed to make room for a Christmas tree. Wood has received a wonderful resurgence in the design community of late, with some covet-worthy examples in this desk set and the Monolith iPhone back, lovingly reviewed in April on this very site.
You can imagine my delight, then, when Charlie Sorrel posted about the Miniot Cover Mark Two, or Mk2, this spring. Dissatisfied with most covers I’ve tried for the new iPad, I had to get my hands on the Mk2. And what a dapper little devil it turned out to be.
I’ve reviewed a number of iPhone wallet cases this year, and I’ve already mentioned that I’m a fan of combining my device with my credit cards and cash so that I can leave my bulky billfold at home. But the Q Card Case from CM4 is a little different to those I’ve already taken a look at.
First, it’s not a leather folio that looks a little like a book. Instead, it’s made mostly from rubber — like a lot of simple iPhone cases — and it features a leather pocket on its rear that comfortably holds up to three cards, plus a few bills.
That simple, soft-touch design means it’s not as bulky as traditional leather wallet cases — despite holding the same number of cards as most — and it’ll slip easily into and out of your pockets.