Party on your bike with an iPhone speaker and a bottle cage for a hip flask, or protect your camera from water and dirt with dust-repellent filters and a great roll-top backpack. Or just forget everything and take your frustrations to the beach, with the SBOD tote bag.
Even the BeachSafe won’t save you if you leave it alone on the beaches of Barcelona, but it’s still a pretty neat idea. It’s a tote bag that folds out to make a seat for sitting on the sand. Slide your towel out of its compartment, fill that compartment with sand (for ballast) using the built-in scoop and secure the bag’s opening with a combination lock. It won’t stop anyone from making off with the whole thing, but I like the idea of a combo bag/seat, whether it’s safe or not. €60
The Tile is a tiny plastic widget that never gets lost. In theory anyway. It talks to your iPhone via low-power Bluetooth and lets you track the Tile itself, and anything the Tile is attached to.
I’ve been using one for the last couple of weeks, and it works just fine. But so far it doesn’t seem to be much more useful than one of those keychain finders that beeps when you whistle. Why? Because to be truly useful, the Tile needs to reach a critical mass of users.
Whether the weather is wet or dry, we've got you covered this week. Waterproof headphones and speakers, and some nonslip bike pedal covers, will let you carry on in the rain or in the lake. And a flash-booster, replacement keycaps and a big twisty knob will keep you entertained indoors. Don’t forget your umbrella (or sunglasses)!
Are you the kind of nostalgic soul who looks back at the Underwood, Remington, and Smith-Corona typewriters of yesteryear and sigh plaintively? Yet are you simultaneously a modern tech nerd, who couldn’t go without the conveniences afforded by an iPad or iMac? Well, then, the Qwerkywriter — an 84-key keyboard that looks just like a vintage typewriter — might be just the thing for you.
Take the Xistera out of its box and you’ll be disappointed. It’s ugly as hell, like a cheap corkscrew, and it looks like it won’t really do much. But hidden in those graceless curves and eye-gouging corners is what a lazier journalist than me would call a “Swiss Army knife of iPhoneography.”
Cameras, chargers, cycle helmets and saddles. Yes, it’s another edition of Cult of Mac's Gadget Watch, and again we’re heading outdoors to snap photos and enjoy the sun. Take a look at this week’s death-defying gear.
The Snappgrip is a fantastic idea, with not-too-bad hardware to back it up. It’s an accessory grip for your iPhone that adds a Bluetooth shutter release, zoom buttons and control dial to the phone’s camera, as well as a wrist strap and a handy handgrip.
But in practice, you’ll be better off with the iPhone’s own volume switches if you want a hardware shutter release. Which is a shame, as I was super-excited to try the Snappgrip out.
If you like the look of Adobe’s new Creative Cloud apps Sketch and Line, but don’t fancy buying the $200 official stylus to use with them, you should pick up Adonit's new Jot Touch instead. It has a tiny “Pixelpoint” tip instead of a disk or fat rubbery point, and it works just like Adobe’s Ink stylus, letting you copy and paste to/from the Creative Cloud as well as access files and Kuler color palettes. Best of all, it’s just $120.
I’ve tried a lot of cases for my Mac notebooks over the years, from a dorky aluminum briefcase for my white “icebook” iBook through cheap, zip-up neoprene sleeves and on to bulky, custom-fitted, shock-absorbing monsters. But the elegant, simple and beautiful Castello Davarg York, cut from a single piece of leather, is the only one that makes any sense for my MacBook Air.
Like the MacBook Air inside, you can’t help but finger and fiddle with the York case. It’s cut from 5-ounce, full-grain leather that’s folded and then hand-stitched along two sides before finishing the edges and … well, that’s almost it. The case has no fastening or closure, and lacks a lining or padded interior, but it is shaped perfectly to fit the MacBook Air. (I tested the 13-inch size, but it also comes for the 11-incher.) It even has a little cutout on the top edge that mimics the one found on the lid of the MacBook itself.
Do you like to wander the streets, camera in hand, ready to catch an amazing shot? Have you ever missed that shot thanks to the time taken to fumble your iPhone from your pocket and fire up the camera? Even if the answer to these questions is “No,” you should probably take a look at Shoulderpod’s S1 anyway – it’s not only a great camera grip, but also the best value you’ll get spending $30 on an iPhone accessory.
No matter which way you swing, this week’s gadgets have you covered. iPhoneographers can enjoy the Shoulderpod hand grip or slip the new iPad Olloclip onto their Mini or Air, and film nuts can get instant satisfaction with the new Lomo Instant Camera.
Camping? Take it easy in the giant Meriwether tent or go survivalist with the Blastmatch fire-starter. You can even choose how to arrive at the site, with accessories for your car or your bike. Happy traveling!
This week we get cooking with a gadget-charging camping stove and a slick, iPhone-friendly food thermometer. We also do DIY projects (without tenderizing our thumbs) with the German Latthammer, charge our flagging phones with a purse that packs a built-in battery, and record everything using the super-dorky Lifelogger camera. Is the sun shining? Yes it is!
Is it a stills camera? No. Is it a video camera? No. Is it something between the two? Correctamundo! The OTTO is a “Hackable GIF Camera” that uses a Raspberry Pi brain to make animated GIF pictures.
This week we check out the best iPhone cases for using underwater. And seeing as the only reason to take an iPhone underwater is to snap pictures, we’re looking specifically at the camera capabilities.
Who’d have thought that four tiny stick-on plastic corners could make such a great iPhone “case?” Yet the Bezl, a case so minimal it doesn’t even have room for vowels, is one of my favorites. That might not be surprising for someone who avoids cases altogether, but they’re pretty useful for something so tiny.
If you told me I could only shop at one candy store from now on, that candy store would be Photojojo. The sweet photo gadgets that appear new in the store every week constantly test my resolve not to tap in a credit card number.
The latest temptation? The DryZone Duffel, which is a waterproof camera bag.
Snappgrip is an add-on camera grip for your iPhone, bringing the extra manual knobs, dials and buttons you miss from your regular camera. It’s been around for a while.
But that’s not the news. The new is that a couple of great iPhone camera apps now incorporate the Snappgrip API. That is, these apps can be controlled by the buttons on the grip.
We like Moshi’s Verso covers, which fold – origami-like – into a variety of handy stands. And we (actually probably just me – nobody else here uses one) love the InCase Origami, which covers the Apple aluminum keyboard with a case that folds out into an iPad stand.
So how could I resist Moshi’s VersaKeyboard, which kind of does both?
These new flexible wooden sleeves from Grovemade are amazing. Look at them. Just look.
They’re made from veneers of maple or walnut, lined with felted wool and have leather and brass straps to pull out the MacBook or iPad within in one easy yank.
At just $15, I wouldn’t be surprised if the Amzer Shellster fell apart after a couple of weeks, but what a couple of weeks that would be. The iPhone 5 case comes in pretty much any too-bright color you can think of, and features an integrated clip and kickstand.
Logitech’s new Hinge is an iPad case with – what do you think? Yup, a hinge. To be honest, it’s really no different from all the other cases that have a vertical crease in the back so that the front flap can fold away and around to make a multi-angle stand, but the Hinge looks better than most of them while it does it.
This week we look at docking stations for the MacBook. Docks let you stow your laptop out of the way. With its lid closed, and yet still use its brain to power a monitor and hook up to a mouse and keyboard.
Some docks are simple dumb stands, others offer hookups that the modern MacBook lacks, like HDMI and Ethernet ports.
Let’s take a look at three of the best.
You know what time of year it is? Spring. And you know what kind of product is perfect to launch in your store during spring? According to the folks at Reign23 who sent me the PR email, the perfect spring accessory is gloves. Warm, hand-toasting gloves.
Or rather, a dab-on liquid which turns any gloves into touchscreen-friendly gloves.
I kinda like the little Modulo. It’s a set of battery packs for charging your gadgets, with the gimmick that they are stackable and work on concert, letting your tune the weight/power ratio depending on which gadgets you’re using, and how long you’ll be away from mains power.
They also look cool, like little game carts from the 1980s.
