Lioncase’s NYHK (New York Hong Kong) case for the iPad is a leather celebration of monosyllabic place names. It is also one of the lightest and slimmest cases around, and it is the one that the Lady still chooses despite the flood of test cases (pun intended) which sweep through our home.
Now the lightweight case has been expanded to fit the MacBook Pro Retina 15-inch. GONE! is the brittle iPad-holding shell (the one weak point of the original), and NEW! is the button-fastening clasp.
This is a rather specialized iPhone case, but if you’re, say, an interior designer or even just a fan of the color scheme of the end-of-level doors on first-person shooters, you’re going to love it.
The case comes from Incipio, and it turns your iPhone into a virtual tape measure.
To paraphrase the immortally wise words of Spinal Tap’s Nigel Tufnel, how much more minimal could this iPhone case be? The answer is none. None more minimal: It’s nothing more than a piece of cleverly cut leather and a rubber band.
This is just about the coolest iPad case you’ll see this week. It’s called the Tank, and it’s an aluminum beast which will protect your iPad and also twist to stand in pretty much any position you choose. If a movie protagonist was to walk purposefully down a street with an iPad handcuffed to his wrist, it’d be sat inside a Tank.
Back when I lived in SoCal, I was fixated with the coast. The sand, the surf, the sailboats. In fact, I often sailed out of Oxnard, a sleepy seaside burb just north of Los Angeles, which also happens to hide Mac-friendly bag-maker HEX.
Makes sense, then, that they’d launch the nautically themed Cabana collection, a heavily striped gathering of MacBook carriers and cases, and even an iPhone case. And nothing says “boating” more than a copious helping of stripes. But the bags aren’t just all about looks; they’re also all constructed of tough, water-resistant waxed canvas. I can practically hear the seagulls.
Made from rare woods, leather, and nickel-plated aluminum, Element’s Ronin iPhone 5 case is definitely one of the most beautiful and finely crafted cases I’ve seen. But at $180, its price might be hard from some to swallow.
Fact: If we keep consuming magnets at the current rate, the world’s magnet mines will run empty by the end of December this year. And yet this ecological disaster waiting to happen hasn’t stopped the likes of Tim Angel and his case company ZooGue from exploiting these “blood magnets” for his own ends.
The latest example is the Prodigy case, a fat, padded folio with an adjustable stand.
You know what surprised me last week? That the iPad mini is almost as capable a work computer as my Retina iPad. The screen isn’t quite as readable, and you have to wait for Safari to reload pages and for apps to cold boot more often thanks to the lack of RAM, but as a machine to write on, it works amazingly well.
Which is why Logitech’s Ultrathin Keyboard for the Mini is a very welcome little accessory.
SAN FRANCISCO, MACWORLD/iWORLD 2013 – There are tons of cases here at Macworld. Millions. Billions even. You can find cases for every sort of purpose. Want a case that can open your beer. Yep, it’s here. One that doubles as a mouse for your Mac. Sure thing.
Any case you can dream up for your iPhone, you will probably be able to find it here. But in one corner of Macworld there’s a booth that’s trying to sell Samsung smartphone cases to the hordes of Apple fanboys.
The SkechBook case, from master iPad case-maker Skech, was one of the things that drove me to buy and iPad mini, so slim and cute and retro-tastic is its tiny form.
Since succumbing to the mini’s charms, though, I have come to believe that it really needs no case other than the Smart Cover, and the Smart Cover is only really needed to lock and unlock the screen quickly. Why? Because the iPad mini weighs just 307 grams on my kitchen scale, making even the 68-gram Smart Cover a significant addition to its weight. And apart from the glass screen, the little iPad is so light, tough and compact that further protection seems like unnecessary coddling.
Unu’s Ecopak is about as simple as an iPhone battery case can get. And as this also means that it is thin and light, and that it will work with not only the iPhone 5 but any gadget than charges via USB, that simplicity is perhaps its best feature.
The Ecopak consists of two parts. The thin, snap-on shell-style case, and the. Battery pack itself. Let’s take a look.
SAN FRANCISCO, MACWORLD/iWORLD 2013 – I don’t believe in covering my gorgeous iPhone with a case. I want it to be naked. Free. Yes, it might gather some battle scars in the process, but I think those give it character. I also don’t use a case because I just don’t want any extra bulk in my pocket, and most cases add a half inch of thickness to my svelte iPhone 5.
TwelveSouth has heard the complaints of iPhone users like me who hate using cases. They know that some of us don’t want to hide the iPhone’s beautiful design. They know I just want to be able to slip it in and out of my pocket with ease. But they also know I worry that my screen is going to get scratched or shatter, and they think they have the perfect solution.
Griffin has finally admitted to itself that no matter how good an iPad or MacBook case it makes, you are – eventually – going to toss it away. So the Paper Nomad is designed to decompose gracefully, kind of like the opposite of every aging Hollywood star, ever.
Like a dummy, I bought a waterproof iPhone pouch without checking whether it fit my iPhone 5. It did, but only with some scary squeezing and bending. I bought the case to see me through a rainy trip to Paris at the end of last year, but when I discovered the mismatch (Paris Mis-Match?) I used my formidable mental powers to solve the problem – I hid in bars and coffee shops every time it rained.
If I’d had the mentalKase, though, I could’ve explored the city a little better. Well, almost.
Having utterly failed in my efforts to not buy an iPad mini, I have already started a collection of cases. Most of them are review units, and almost all of them add too much weight and bulk to the tiny mini. But the Booqpad mini seems to have a different idea: If you’re going to add weight anyway, why not just go the whole way and make the extra grams worth it?
Pocowool for iPad is the big brother to the Pocowool iPhone case, a minimal felted-wool taco which doubled as a clutch bag/purse. The iPad version draws more than a little inspiration from the Don’t Panic, another wool-and-leather case for the iPad, but opts for a slightly simpler design.
This is the iLID, billed as “The World’s Thinnest iPhone Wallet.” And that may well be true. What we know for sure about the iLID is that it’s a plastic case with a teeny, tiny chamber on the back for stowing cash, cards and keys.
This post is for entertainment purposes only. Sure, there are people out there that will need a case with which they can transport up to twenty iPad minis, and which can charge all of them simultaneously, but they are probably few.
No, the real reason for this post is that the PowerSync Roller 20 is both amazing looking, and ridiculously over the top.
Oddly enough, I bought the case for my iPad mini years ago, before even the full-sized iPad was a real thing that existed. It’s the back pocket of my jeans, and unless I’m sitting down or riding a bike, it’s just about perfect. And it’s even Smart Cover compatible.
But there are those who maybe like to protect their investment a little more, or who just really, really hate the sound of exquisitely hewn aluminum scraping against a rough-topped table. For you, there’s the CoverBuddy.
We’re still waiting for iPhone 5 Lightning-compatible battery cases, but at least we’re finally getting some product teasers and (vague) launch dates. The latest comes from everybody’s favorite crapware vendor Brando, and costs a mere $35. And it even closes up like a book.
$100 might seem like a crazy amount to spend on an iPhone case, but if you paid around €850 ($1,140) for an unlocked iPhone 5 like I did, then it actually seems like a pretty good investment to protect your, uh, other investment.
And coincidentally, $100 is exactly what you’ll pay for Otterbox’s Armor series case, billed as “The toughest case ever built.”
LAS VEGAS, CES 2013 – Griffin’s Survivor+Catalyst might have a goofy name, but it’s the first ruggedized waterproof case I’ve seen which isn’t hugely oversized or just plain fugly. In fact, it might be slim and stylish enough for everyday use.
LAS VEGAS, CES 2013 – I was so impressed by Simplism neat case lineup that I thought I’d post a few pictures of the Japanese company’s wares, even though it’s still looking for an international distributor.
Below you will see the wonders of a case made to look like wood; the world’s thinnest iPhone 5 case, a clever Smart-Cover-locking, over-the-shoulder rear skin for the iPad and and a screen protector and cover which heal if they are scratched.
LAS VEGAS, CES 2013 – It’d be easy to believe that CES is totally about the press, but the real reason its here is for device makers to hawk their wares to dealers, store chains and so on.
And that’s what’s happening at the iLuv booth, which this year has a neat Lightning iPhone dock (more on that in another post) and this super-stylish iPhone case.
LAS VEGAS, CES 2013 – I tried a Lightning-equipped battery case out today, and it was great. If you were doubting Apple’s decision to swap out its hideous 30-pin connector for the svelte new Lightning, then one smooth-sliding click of UNU’s case will put you straight.
