No one would accuse Urban Armor Gear of being sleek or subtle. The company’s iDevice cases are loud and rugged. You might even call them masculine, although I know a few of my female friends would embrace the bold statement they make.
It seems silly to call something with so much technology packed into it “simple,” but this is the word I keep coming back to when describing Lezyne’s new bicycle computers.
They are simple. They are also powerful and sleek — and they just might be the perfect option for cyclists who like to have their data, but don’t need it blasted at them the entire time they are on their bikes.
The flagship speaker from Sonos has been revamped, redesigned and relaunched. The result is awesome.
The new Play:5 is a big, beefy speaker that sounds absolutely wonderful. It’s available in stores today, and although it’s not cheap, I’d recommend you go out and get one. Or two. Stereo is even better.
Last Horizon, which is out now for Mac, iOS (reviewed version), PC, and Android is a beautifully simple game: You leave your obliterated planet in a single rocket, heading out for a new home and gathering supplies along the way. It has two controls: turning and firing your thrusters. But it’s a lot more than that.
From that simple framework and its colorful, minimalist art style, a story emerges of hope, exploration, danger, fear, doubt, and, ultimately, triumph.
But it’s outer space, so you have to make sure that the thousands of things that will kill you don’t.
I’ve got a love/hate relationship with standing desks. While I love the health benefits of standing, I seriously cannot stand at my desk all day every day. It needs to be easily adjustable.
Also, not all of us have the space for yet another desk in our homes or offices. Most of us have a regular, plain old desk. If you’re looking for a standing solution – you can convert that plain desk super easily with this Sit-Stand Desktop Workstation. It’s a heavy-duty, solid piece of work, and it sits right on top your regular desk. There’s room to strap on a monitor or two, or even just place your Macbook on top with an external keyboard and mouse below.
Wacom is to graphics tablets what Kleenex is to facial tissues, so it’s no surprise that the company knows its way around a stylus. And the original version of the Bamboo Fineline is a great entry point for those looking to start drawing, sketching, and taking notes on their iPads.
We all like to carry our gadgets around with us, but there are definitely times when you’ll want to be ultra portable and just take along, say, your iPad mini on vacation. Or, perhaps you want to get some writing done on the airplane:we all know the seat-back tray is way too small for a full laptop.
This ultra-portable Brydge keyboard is a fantastic match for the iPad mini, letting you be a bit more productive than you would without an actual keyboard. It’s designed to match whichever iPad mini you own, turning the whole thing into an adorably small Macbook-like laptop-style tablet.
If you’ve had an iPad for at least a couple of years now, you’ve probably noticed one of the major ergonomic issues with it: there’s no perfect way to hold it. You can hold your iPad to use it which always feels just slightly awkward, place it on a table which hunches you over and strains the back of your neck, or put it on your lap and fold your legs up which just feels ridiculous. A Kickstarter project called the Tstand aims to solve this problem.
The Tstand is a new, adjustable tablet stand that can dramatically decrease muscle tension when you’re trying to do something as simple as watch a show on Netflix. The stand has a foldable, clamshell design that can match any viewing angle you need.
The iPad Pro is being hailed as “a new kind of computer,” but as some have noted, it’s really the top half of a new kind of computer. Missing is the bottom half — the keyboard.
Apple has a solution for that — the $169 Smart Keyboard, which turns the iPad Pro into a laptop lookalike. But there’s a fantastic alternative: Logitech’s Create keyboard and case.
Logitech’s Create has several advantages over Apple’s Smart Keyboard. First, it’s a keyboard and a case that turns the Pro into a proper faux laptop (Apple’s keyboard is half a case that covers only the iPad’s screen). Logitech’s keyboard has fantastic chicklet keys, versus Apple’s hated low-travel flat keys; and it’s backlit, an essential requirement for any keyboard.
All in all, Logitech’s $150 backlit keyboard turns the iPad Pro into a MacBook — but a MacBook with cool extra features like Touch ID and a touch-sensitive screen.
I think I expected too much of the Trident Valet, but now that we’ve gotten past our initial squabbling, I think we’ll be just fine.
The Apple Watch stand/case/charger, which has its own self-contained charger and an auxiliary port that lets you power up a second device while you top off your watch, will not replace your day-to-day charging setup. But it isn’t supposed to, and once you get past that, you’ll appreciate the Valet for what it is: A good-looking, convenient way to charge your devices on the go.
And if that’s all you need from it, you’ll be really happy together.
I sadly gave away my favorite wallet case when I upgraded to the iPhone 6 Plus.
Since then, I keep ending up at the store or almost running out of gas without my wallet with me: I leave it at home all the time. Apparently, I’m constitutionally incapable of remembering my ID, cash, and cards.
This Q Card Case, from CM4, is the perfect solution.
We didn’t think it was possible to improve on the amazing second installment of The Room, but developer Fireproof Games has delivered.
The third entry in the puzzle series, The Room Three, takes everything we already loved about the franchise’s Myst-style puzzles and mysterious, Lovecraftian horrors and makes it bigger and smarter. And then it throws in a new character, the most coherent and engaging plot yet, and multiple endings, which it didn’t even need to do, but all of it is great.
If you’ve ever carried around one of those tube-shaped power packs for your iPhone or iPad, you know the one thing it really needs is a way to tell how much juice is left in the thing.
The Power Tube 3000 provides this in spades, with a simple three-light display on the tube itself and an app that lets you know exactly how much power you have left — and what that translates to in terms of usage.
Alloy is the iPhone app that ultimately wants you to spend less time using your iPhone. It lets you create automated tasks and workflows that you can launch with one tap. The automations can upload a selfie to Twitter, convert currency, save your parking location, perform a saved search on Amazon and just about anything else if you’re willing to get creative
My professional DSLRs are starting to look good in retirement. Just ask my neck, back and right shoulder, which are still angry after years of toting the heavy cameras and lenses around.
In their place to sate my photographic wanderings is the Fujifilm X100T, a diminutive, mirrorless, rangefinder-style camera that records gorgeous files. Its exterior is also easy on the eyes — it tends to stop passersby, who ask questions like, “Is that a Leica?”
Apple TV’s killer feature is the App Store. And with an App Store comes games.
I don’t care what near-sighted gaming sites are saying. Sure, Apple’s new box doesn’t have a whole lot of gaming content yet, but it has some great offerings if you poke around a bit. I’m finding games for the new Apple TV that never grabbed my attention when they were on my iPhone or iPad, but seeing them up on the big screen pulled me right in.
Which are the best games for the Apple TV to check out right now, though? Here are our five favorites, in no particular order. Note that the links below will take you to the iTunes App Store. If you purchase them with the same iTunes ID you have set up on your Apple TV, they’ll appear in the “Purchased” tab of the little black puck’s App Store. Alternately, you can search for the game name directly from your TV.
It is never easy to design something that’s going to serve two distinctly different purposes, like a car that turns into an airplane or a fork that doubles as a spoon. Or, in this case, a ski boot that is helps you skin up a mountain or ski the downward slopes reliably, precisely and with some sense of ear-grinning enjoyment.
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I told one of my favorite photographers, Mike Kepka, that I was trying to shoot a little video, but that my audio sounded horrid. He happens to be pretty decent videographer. And a little bit of a gearhead (at least in comparison to me).
“Get a Beachtek,” said Mike.
“What is the hell is that?” I said. “And do you have one?”
There are plenty of iPhone cases on the market to protect and/or decorate your beloved device, but very few come close to being Apple-worthy.
This one is.
Do you want to be known for carrying a stylish computer bag or would you rather be known for being stylish? The Shadow by booq will let you stand out without calling attention to itself while it works to earn a different label: your everyday bag.
The Shadow blends seamlessly with whatever personal style you front with a simple silhouette sans leather or metal accents. You have to look hard to find the brand name. Thick, water-resistant ballistic nylon conceals the ample padding that protects any laptop up to 15 inches.
Power banks and external batteries are everywhere these days, including airports, drug stores and (my favorite) at the Apple Store. I’ve used quite a few of them and, while many are kind of cheaply made, a few are pretty well-designed and useful.
Quarter’s Super Charge Powerbank is one of the latter. Just 15 minutes hooked to your MacBook MagSafe power adapter cord will give it enough juice to fully charge your iPhone. You can charge with a typical micro-USB cable, too, but you won’t get that fast a top-off.
Every month, the App Store fills up with countless iOS games of varying quality. You want to have something to do on your iPhone or iPad while you’re on the bus or enjoying the quiet solitude of your bathroom. But who has time to figure out which titles are worth your valuable time?
Apparently, we do. So if you’re searching for the best iOS gaming treats from the past month, look no further than Cult of Mac as we find the 10 best that you should be playing right now — no tricks.
Here they are, in no particular order.
There are times you want to protect your precious Apple Watch from the extreme abuse you put it through each day — welding, chopping down trees, building your own car, the usual — and there are times you want to make a fashion statement that’s larger than life.
Lunatik’s Epik aluminum Apple Watch case and watchband combo can do both those things for you. The outsize aluminum case bolts around your Apple Watch, and the seriously metal link watch band will make you the envy of every other badass.
The new Apple TV looks like the old one, but it’s a complete overhaul of the little black puck. It now comes with a full-blown App Store, a touch-sensitive remote and voice controls via Siri.
You can preorder it now, and it’ll ship Friday.
We got our hands on a developer model and have been playing around with it. We like it a lot. Setup is fun, the interface looks stunning, and the touch remote works beautifully. If the Music app is any indication, apps on this thing are going to be great. There’s just one little thing wrong. And it’s not little, actually. It’s big.
Here’s the good, the bad and the ugly about the 4th-generation Apple TV.
We loved the original UE Boom and the new 2.0 version is even better. The UE Boom 2 is stain-resistant, stylish, shock-resistant and completely waterproof. We’re not sure who is trying to listen to their tunes underwater, but if that’s your jam … you are good to go.