No doubt, leather requires some sacrifice. Those who want their iPads wrapped with animal hide usually have to make do with considerably more bulk, less usability or less money in the bank account — or, most often, all three. But Sena’s new Florence iPad 2 case ($70) is a surprising exception.
While recent reports have quashed the possibility of an all-new iPhone 5 — and evidence has suggested an iPhone 4S will be the only device Apple announces on October 4 — iPhone 5 cases delivered to AT&T keep our dreams of all-new iPhone alive.
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While the possibility of an iPhone 5 with an all-new design has been quashed in recent rumors, case makers in China are still confident that Apple will have a surprise up its sleeve come October 4. So confident, in fact, that you’ll be surprised at how many iPhone 5 cases are already available.
There’re few materials that can match leather for wear resistance and luxuriousness; and if you’re using an iPad in a professional or fashion-forward setting, leather makes a great choice.
Problem is, leather cases tend not to be the most practical solutions: They’re generally portlier than their proletariat plastic counterparts, and they’re also generally don’t allow for mucking about with positioning much.
Ah, but the updated Sena Folio for iPad ($100) is different.
Being an incurable germaphobe, the Chef Sleeve ($20) is a prescription for sanity when using my iPad in the kitchen. Yes, the plastic sleeves are meant to protect your tablet from culinary messes; but for me, it’s more about protecting the food from the tablet.
I’d really rather have my wallet in my iPhone — ie, the virtual version — rather than the other way around, but I guess we’re not quite there yet (and I can’t help but feel that with Steve semi-gone, we’ll take longer to get there). In the meantime, Hex’s Code Wallet for iPhone 4 offers a more conventional approach that carries all your stuff — including your iPhone — in a foldable leather case.
I’ve been yearning for someone to get this right ever since I wrapped my hands around an iPad 2: the perfect marriage of Smart Cover and back protection for the iPad. Damned if Griffin hasn’t just nailed it with their new IntelliCase ($60).
How many times have you been walking around you home or office using your iPad and it slips out of your hands? I did it a number of times with my first iPad — thankfully without causing too much damage — but with the HandStand 2 ($50) you can eliminate drops altogether.
Prototype case designs coming out of Chinese accessory makers based upon leaked Foxconn intelligence are painting a dramatic picture of the next iPhone. If these leaks are right, the iPhone 5 won’t be a mere iPhone 4S, but rather a radical new device that not only boasts a curved, more ergonomic design and a larger display, but also revolutionizes one of the core aspects of the iOS experience… it totally gets rid of the Home button.
“Dude, your laptop case is, like, totally sick, brah!”
I looked up. It was my waiter, every inch of him a bro. He looked like the kind of guy whose cocktail of choice was a pounder of vodka and Mountain Dew, who spelled extreme with triple x-es, who never met a problem he couldn’t jump a skateboard over. He wore an Offspring t-shirt and a wallet on a chain covered in stickers. His goatee looked like a mullet growing out of his face.
I looked down. The “sick” case in question was the BookBook Case by TwelveSouth ($80) — a case which was designed to make my 11-inch MacBook Air look like some dusty vellum tome plucked from an ancient library.
This crazy-looking thing is Stance, an iPad holder designed to sit in cup holders everywhere.
As both a bibliophile and an 11-inch MacBook Air owner, there’s only one word to describe the new BookBook case by TwelveSouth: utterly gorgeous:
When the brimstone rains down and hell freezes over (or whatever the heck is supposed to happen) on Judgement Day, making sure my iPhone stays safe in Griffin’s damn near impervious-to-everything, military-spec Survivor case ($50) means I’ll be able to tweet the whole thing. Assuming there’s still Internet and power and stuff.
We think there’s little better than laying our fat mitts on the suddenly real version of something that’s, to that point, been fantasy — so you’ll excuse us if we go all giggly over the Hipstamatic app-themed new $40 HipstaCase 100 for the iPhone 4 and iPod Touch.
We’ve seen our fair share of sleeves and cases in the past meant to graft new functionality onto an existing iDevice, the most obvious example being the Peel 520, which transformed any iPod Touch into a 2G iPhone 4.
It was only a matter of time, then, before we could expect accessory makers to make a go of transforming the iPhone 4 into the iPhone 4G. Now they’d made a go of it, but sadly, it’s South Korea only right now… but expect it in the United States soon.
Joey Chun had an idea, and the idea was this: a cute iPhone stand with a sturdy fold-out arm, so you can use it as a viewing stand, or to keep your device still while recording video and taking photos.
Over at Etsy, Jositajosi is selling a selection of lovely hand-sewn cases for MacBook Air and iPad, using authentic Scottish tartans.
This chunky silvery thing is an iKn2, a sturdy and secure case for iPad, built for those times when you might want to use one as a public kiosk device.
iSkin has been my favorite case maker for longer than I can remember. I’ve bought their cases for iPhones and iPods. I liked some of those cases and others I didn’t like at all. Some of them were just okay, but in the end I always used one of iSkin’s cases on my iDevices.
I had to experiment with them, because the cases were like a good pair of shoes. You need to try them on and decide what’s best for you. I hope that this review will help you to make the right choice when choosing an iSkin case for your iPhone 4.
For the adventurous spirit wishing to go back to the 80s and live on the frontier of national cellular service, all the while carrying around a phone roughly the size of a Korean War field radio, here you go: Thumbs Up’s ’80s Phone, a case for your iPhone 4 that is sure to make you look like Gordon Gekko sent hurtling forward in time. Yours for about $20.
Case makers don’t necessarily know anything more than the rest of us about what the next iOS devices will look like — see, for example, the insistence of second-gen iPod Touch case makers that the next iteration of the PMP would have a camera, which didn’t happen until the FaceTime-capable model came along a year later — but they are always of interest, as they usually come from information leaking out of the factories of Apple’s own Chinese manufacturers.
The latest case designs coming out of China, then, is interesting for showing off two new openings that we haven’t seen before. The slot for the rear camera and speaker are, of course, there in their usual places, but two new holes have been carved out to fit an SD card slot and either a mini DisplayPort or an HDMI port.
Intriguing. Of course, if the iPad 2 does get an SD card slot, don’t expect to be able to use it to expand your device’s storage: it’ll strictly be for offloading photos and videos with an iPad Connector Kit.
Early photos from Engadet’s hands-on shows a picture of the Verizon iPhone 4 sitting on top of an AT&T iPhone 4. They look the same until you notice that the mute button and the volume buttons on the Verizon iPhone 4 has been repositioned.
The mute button has been placed in a lower position than the original iPhone 4 on the left side of the iPhone frame. This has led to an offset in the position of the volume buttons also. This means that existing iPhone 4 cases may not work with the new Verizon iPhone 4 model.
Considering all the time and money invested in case design and manufacturing this has to be a set back to the existing case industry and it will lead to confusion in the retail space. However, since case vendors deal with many different phone form factors to begin with this may not be a big deal to them. I’ll be reaching out to a few of them for comment about this soon.
Is this the fall out from Antennagate? Although Apple representative, Tim Cook, claimed that the antenna changes were made to accommodate the CDMA network. I have to wonder if we’ll see the same changes made to the AT&T version of the iPhone 4 or the next generation iPhone 5.
[photo via Engadget]
[Updated to clarify additional changes in volume button position and to correct some typos.]
Look, you and I both know that leaked third-party case designs for unannounced, unreleased Apple products mean next to nothing. In fact, we’ve all been burned by drawing conclusions from purely fanciful Asian case designs before. So please take this news with a grain of salt: a new third-party case design for the iPad 2 seems to imply that the second-generation tablet will have an all-together sleeker and more iPod Touch evocative look.
Made from American Rosewood treated with a variety of washes and finishes, I love the look of Trunket’s wood finish stickers for the iPhone 4, right down to the adorable elephant icon. If only the font of Trunket’s logo itself didn’t look like something that would be more appropriate on some terrible nu metal band’s debut CD jacket. $24 a pop.
Need an external battery pack that doesn’t just dangle from the foot of your phone like a bulbous, electrically-charged bunion? The Octopus might be just what you’re looking for.
Taking its name from the suction cups of a cephalopod’s tentacles, the Octopus sits in your gadget bag until your iPhone runs out of juice, at which point it can be slapped onto the back of your device and connected to the Dock Connector thanks to a flexible cable.
If you allow the Octopus to fully charge your iOS device, you can expect your iPhone to comfortably juice to about half power, which should give you either ten hours of extra video or four hours of extra talk time.
Not a bad idea compared to some of the bulkier combo battery cases, and cheap to boot: the Octopus will only cost you $30
