Reliving your childhood with retro games on iOS is, I find, one of the best ways to spend a quiet Sunday afternoon — until you get frustrated with the virtual controls that keep getting you killed and you threaten to throw your iPad out of the window. But thanks to the iCade 8-Bitty, a new Bluetooth control pad for iOS, you can now play your favorite titles with real controls.
Bodymedia’s Fit fitness tracker is a hideously ugly, and is supported by one of the most willfully customer-hostile web services I have ever seen. Yet despite this, it actually does its job very well.
If your iPhone 5 speakers aren’t loud enough when you’re trying to have an impromptu Lady Gaga dance party, you might wanna look into getting a portable speaker that can keep your beats fast and your base down low.
The iAudio 2 portable bluetooth speaker is perfect for Apple Fanboys. It even looks like something Apple would make and comes with a glowing Apple logo on the front, which really means that Apple’s going to slam iAudio with a cease and desist letter pretty soon, so grab it while you still can.
There’s so much wordplay to be had in this post that if I start now, I might just forget to write about the product itself. So if you want dick jokes and Star Wars references, you’ll find them at the end of this post. In the meantime, let’s take a look at Richard Solo’s horribly-named FreeWheelin Audio System For Helmets.
Remember those novelty retro cellphone handsets? The ones with curly cords that attached to your handset’s proprietary connector and made it look like you were making a call on a rotary telephone circa 1970? In the pub?
Well, the Swissvoice ePure is something like that, only more useful, and way, way cooler looking.
It seems Apple’s new Maps app isn’t the only thing frustrating iOS 6 users right now. A 91-page thread on Apple’s Support Communities forum is full of users who are also complaining about Wi-Fi connectivity issues, which are said to be plaguing the iPhone 4S and the new iPad after upgrading. It’s not just that Wi-Fi performance is poor; some users can’t enable it at all.
Click-clack-CLUNK! That’s the sound a Transformer makes when it, uh, transforms. And that’s the sound I imagine the Jorno makes when it transforms from stout, ugly black box into miniature-but-not-too-tiny Bluetooth keyboard.
FitBit, my favorite fitness and activity-tracking widget, has at last gotten a brother and sister, putting an end to that awkward only-child behavior which surely would have developed otherwise (animal torture; computer programming; you know the drill).
The newborns have been named FitBit Zip and FitBit One, the baby and the smart overachiever of the family, respectively. The One can also sync direct with your iPhone.
With the announcement of a single piece of hardware, Apple has obsoleted thousands of iPhone accessories, almost overnight. Between the thinner, taller case and the new Lightning sync/power adapter, pretty much none of your old accessories (or any accessories you can currently buy) will fit the new iPhone.
Does it matter? Should you stop buying iPhone-specific accessories? Just how useful will these stop-gap adapters be? Find out with our iPhone 5 accessory guide.
Most Bluetooth headphones are ugly. Most Bluetooth headphones are junk. Most Bluetooth headphones make you long for a cord. They are distorted, bass heavy, low-quality piece of junk.
For the most part, not so Harman / Kardon’s over-the-ear Bluetooth headphones. These are Bluetooth headphones worthy in both sound quality and design of the iconic company that not only helped create Hi-Fi, but is, in many non-trivial ways, the Apple of sound.
Nuance has today announced Dragon Dictate for Mac 3, the latest version of its popular dictation software. In addition to being faster and more accurate than the previous Dragon Dictate 2.5, this release also boasts “more features than ever before,” including new Smart Format Rules, wideband Bluetooth support, new correction capabilities, and more.
If you’d shown me the Hi-Call a few years ago I would have ridiculed it and moved on, probably forgetting that this stupid Bluetooth glove even existed. Now, though, in a world infected with “sanitation engineers” so in-demand that they have Bluetooth headsets wedged permanently into their ears, and idiots wander the streets holding their in-line mics up to their mouths as they speak, the Hi-Call from Hi-Fun doesn’t seem so dumb after all.
The Phiaton PS 210 BTNC ($129) earphones—yes, they named them all that—have all the same functionality as your white Apple earbuds; you can chat with ’em, listen to tunes with ’em, even control your iPhone with ’em. But unlike your white-wired buds, they do all that wirelessly via Bluetooth, and include some sparkly noise-canceling technology that deliver audio to your ears sans a world of ambient sounds.
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I bet you never thought you’d feel early-adopter’s remorse for a bathroom scale, right? Well, if you bought the Withings Wi-Fi-connected scale to wirelessly share your weight and BMI with the world (or just with your own suite of fitness apps) then prepare to get stressed out, and maybe to comfort yourself with a big slice of rich, delicious chocolate cake: The Withings WS30 is here.
Over at the IFA tradeshow in Berlin. Zagg has launched a couple of new iPad keyboards. And one of them, the Pro Plus, has something I have missed ever since I took to typing on my iPad in the corners of dark and seedy bars: a keyboard backlight.
We knew it wouldn’t be long before VMware’s Fusion 5 had a competitor. Today Parallels has announced the release of Parallels 8 for Mac, the latest edition of its flagship virtualization software, which includes support for Windows 8, and boasts Retina-ready visuals for the new MacBook Pro. Other improvements include support for Mountain Lion Dictation, Bluetooth sharing, and Launchpad integration.
Bluetooth speakers? Count me in. I love the things: portable, great-sounding, remote control right there on the speaker, and wireless. But Bluetooth headphones? Aren’t they bulky, and with crappy battery life? Not, apparently, the new Satchi BT Lite headphones, which – as the name suggests – are pretty “lite.”
Hey! Remember those old travel alarm clocks which would fold out from a pocket-sized, pillow-shaped package into a three-sided stand-up clock? No? Well I do, because that’s what my ever-frugal Nan used to use as a regular clock in the living room, and I never tired of folding and unfolding it – whenever she wasn’t around, at least.
Which is why I have a thing for this neat-o Bluetooth speaker from Geneva Labs. The handsome package folds up just like my Nan’s did, and even manages to hide a cute clock in behind the minimalistical grille.
Skype has updated its official iOS app today, finally introducing the ability to send and receive photographs on your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch. The update also brings visual improvements across the app, fixes bugs affecting Bluetooth, and more.
This is the SuperTooth Disco 2. It’s the sequel to one of my favorite Bluetooth speakers ever, the SuperTooth, only smaller, a little quieter, and a lot more stereo-er. It also has a quirky little flower-vase style which will probably grow on you, especially if you have small tables.
It’s not difficult to open up the Settings app and activate or deactivate things like Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, or Airplane Mode. But it could be a whole lot quicker. Wouldn’t it be nice if you could have an icon on your home screen that allows you to toggle these things instantly — without having to navigate the Settings app? Thanks to IconToggles, you can.
Hidden Radio, a Bluetooth speaker and radio so minimalist it makes a sheet of blank paper look like something from a Jules Verne story, has finally emerged from a lengthy Kickstarter pupation to go on sale in a web store near you.
It’s stylish, it’s loud and it lasts longer than most other Bluetooth speakers around. What’s not to like?
Ever heard of MirrorLink? A bunch of really big names in the car and tech world — Honda, GM, Toyota, Panasonic and pretty much all the big Android handset makers (that’s right, no Apple) — got together, called themselves the Car Connectivity Consortium and created a standardized communication format so that smartphones could easily communicate with car audio head units and the like. The format is called MirrorLink, and today Sony has unleashed no less than five MirrorLink-equipped units head units out onto U.S. roads, two of which are equipped with MirrorLink.
Wood is, indeed, awesome. Speaker makers have been using wood for years to wrap high-end speakers in, utilizing the highly resonant natural properties of wood for sound reproduction. Now, with the all the rage for tiny bluetooth speakers like the Jambox and the Logitech Mini Boombox, perhaps it’s time for something just a bit more, well, woody.
The Mini Boombox ($100) is Logitech’s entry into the hotly contested Bluetooth micro-speaker contest. Like its contemporaries (the Jawbone Jambox and Monster iClarityHD are two prime examples), the Boombox supplies big sound in a tiny, wireless, battery-powered package — only in this case with Logitech’s signature sleek, stylish approach and a futuristic control panel. Let’s take a look at how it stacks up.
