hardware - page 19

Win a Free iMainGoX Portable iPhone/iPod Speaker System from Cult of Mac! [Twitter Giveaway]

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iMainGoX

Last Thursday we told our Twitter followers we would throw a weeklong giveaway party if we reached 50,000 Twitter followers by the end of the week. Well, our fans heard the call and exceeded our expectations by boosting us up to 53,000! To show our gratitude for our fans we’ll be giving away an awesome iMainGo X (along with some other stuff) every day this week, starting today. Entry into each daily contest will be varied depending on the day, so keep an eye out for the giveaway posts so that you can ensure you win. Here’s how to enter today’s giveaway:

Kickstarter Project Aims to Make iPad 2 Tripod Mount and Remote Shutter Release

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JNtV9dLUNAs

Check out this Kickstarter project — it’s a really smart clear polycarbonate iPad 2 case (called the iLoqk — hey, we’ve heard worse) that comes with a removable clamp that doubles as a tripod mount, which is yours for a pledge of $40. An extra $20 will bag you the XShot, an extending arm that attaches to the tripod mount and comes with a wireless shutter release for the iPad’s camera. It’s a pretty nifty idea, and seems like it’d helpful in all sorts of situations.

Etymotic ER-6i Earphones Deserve Their Mythic Status [Review]

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Image courtesy of Etymotic Research.

“If something ain’t broke, don’t fix it” is a phrase Etymotic must have taken extremely seriously, judging by a look at their now-mythic, $99 ER-6i. The set has been around since their release in 2004, after which they quickly became the standard against which all other sub-$100 IEMs were tested. But seven years is an eon for a product to have remained essentially unchanged in the gadget world. Are they still as good now as they were then?

Apple’s A4 Chip Could Be The Minimum Requirement For Running iOS 5

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With iOS 4, Apple left the original iPhone and iPod Touch behind in the dust of iOS 3.1.3, and even the iPhone 3G could not avail itself of some of iOS 4’s most notable features, like multitasking. As long as you at least had an iPhone 3GS, though, you’d be fine.

Given how many problems the iPhone 3G hardware had running iOS 4.0, it should come as no surprise that Apple is hoping to consign that hardware to the dustbin when they debut iOS 5 at WWDC next month. What may be more surprising is that the iPhone 3GS will go into the dustbin too.

The Crumpler 8 Million Dollar Home is a Rugged, Charismatic Rogue of a Camera Bag [Review]

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There’s nothing like traveling with several thousand dollars worth of expensive photo gear to kick up the ‘ol stress levels: Will I be able to pack all my stuff, and will it ll be easily accessible? Will any of it break? Are colleagues or clients going to laugh at me because it doesn’t look pro enough? If it does look pro, will it make a tempting target for thieves? Can it fit into the overhead bin or under my seat on a plane? And what the heck am I going to do with my laptop?

So it’s always a welcome relief when a bag answers those questions soothingly, in a way that sets the mind at ease — which, except for one or two of those questions, Crumpler’s $172, ruggedly adventurous 8 Million Dollar photo/laptop bag does.

End of the World? I Don’t Care, My iPhone is Shielded in Griffin’s Survivor Case [Review]

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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.

New Bluetooth Gadget Turns Any Speakers Into Bluetooth Speakers

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The smooth little black pebble above from XtremeMac is a new combo charging/bluetooth-streaming option called the InCharge Home BT ($80). Pretty simple concept: Plug it into a wall outlet, then hook it up via the 3.5 mm jack to any speaker system and bango, you’ve given the system Bluetooth streaming capability, which means you can stream music to your speakers from any iDevice or Mac; then use the USB port to charge stuff (comes with a USB t0 30-pin connector and a 3.5 mm jack cable). There’s also an auto version called, naturally, the InCharge Auto BT ($80) that XtremeMac says allows hands-free calling, so we’re assuming it’s equipped with a microphone.

Mophie Releases Its Most Powerful Battery Case Yet

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Mophie’s new Juice Pack Plus for the iPhone 4 (both versions) is just one millimeter thicker than Mophie’s flagship Juice Pack Air — but stuffs 25 percent more battery into that sliver. The $100 Plus is the most massive battery ever produced by Mophie and comes with all the fancy frippery of it’s lighter brother (rubberized casing, LED status indicator, standby switch and what Mophie calls an “Acoustic Sound Enhancement,” which we weren’t sure actually did anything in our test of the 3GS version of the Air).

Liking the purple? Better get a jump on ordering; only 3000 of those were made. If you miss out, there’s still cyan, yellow, magenta or good ‘ol black-on-black to pick from.

Astounding JH16 Pro Earphones Sound — and Priced — Like Pure Gold [Review]

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During the pre-review back-and-forth with Jerry Harvey’s vaunted audiophile-focused lab — the flagship creation of which are the JH Audio JH16 Pro in-ear monitors being reviewed here — I asked them offhandedly how a set of IEMs with eight drivers in each ear (that’s right, almost unbelievably, eight tiny armatures and a crossover are cocooned within each earpiece) would compare with something akin to the single-driver-per-ear Etymotic hf2’s we liked so much. The answer came back: Don’t be daft.

Spiderpodium Tablet for iPad Brings More Pain Than Pleasure [Review]

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When it was first revealed at CES earlier this year, we were all amazed with the Spiderpodium Tablet by Breffo ($35). Somewhere in between a toy, and a multipurpose iPad stand, the Spiderpodium has an extremely unique design that is adaptable for almost any tablet device. I got the chance to play around with the unique stand over the last few weeks, and while I think that it’s incredibly clever, there are definitely some drawbacks.