Take a look at this iPhone case that turns your svelte, pocket-friendly computer into a big, bloated plastic boat. You might scoff. I did. But then I realized that at home I lay my iPhone on tables and tatamis ay more often than I carry it in my pocket. And I am constantly picking it up to check the web, or to play music and podcasts before putting it back on a (most likely wet) kitchen table.
So this Mango thing actually looks pretty neat.
Filp Cap from CNET Asia on Vimeo.
Pesky lens caps: They’re either on the lens and in your way, or in your pocket and impossible to find. Or – worse – lost. What’s that? You have a little string to keep it attached to your camera’s strap? That’s neat, but it’s also going to drive you crazy next time it dangles into frame.
What you need, my frustrated camera-toting friend, is the Flip Cap.
Another day, another awesome-looking Bluetooth speaker WHICH I TOTALLY WANT. Today’s chunky rectangle of wireless audio goodness is the Switch from Native Union, and it has one distinguishing feature: a big round volume knob on one end.
If you made a Venn Diagram with circles for the name and the description of the Aluminum Sliding Bumper Case for iPad Mini, then it would consist of just one circle.
And there’s not really much more to add.
Ever wish that you could sort the photos on your iPad by… well, by anything? The Photos app lists everything by date, and won’t even tell you which pictures are JPGs and which are GIFs. And forget about sorting by camera model for your imported photos.
SmartAlbum, on the other hand, will do just that. And a more.
We’ve got lots of love for the LEGO series games. They often have an uncanny ability to capture the feel of their parent titles — in a way that’s cuter than a basketful of kittens, but much more fun. The Lord of the Rings is the latest title to join the collection, and it’s coming to OS X next week.
If you’ve been waiting for Apogee’s pro, multichannel Quartet to finally become iPad-compatible since we mentioned%20it%20last%20month,%20time’s%20up%20—%20it’s%20ready.
You know about Magnetyze, right? It’s a system that lets you charge an iPhone 4/S or Galaxy S3 without the need for a cord. Pop your iPhone into the provided case, then drop the case on the magnetic charging base and your iPhone will charge (and sync) — it works kind of like the MagSafe power adapter on a MacBook. It’s really cool on the S3, because the Magnetyze case replaces the S3’s original back, so there’s almost zero extra bulk. Neat.
The Chef’s Sleeve is a lot like a Wizard’s Sleeve, only it’s usually covered in gravy and blood. And the Chef Sleeve (singular) is a disposable plastic bag which protects your iPad as you cook. Now, the makers of the Chef Sleeve (the bag, not the actual sleeve) will sell you a cutting board with a built-in iPad stand. What could possibly go wrong?
The Smarter Stand for iPhone really is smart. It was designed to solve two problems: tangled earbud cords and a slab-like iPhone which insists on slipping off anything you try to prop it against. And it does all this whilst remaining a flat, pocketable piece of plastic.
Unclutter is the app which will finally – finally! – tidy up the embarrassing mess that is your Mac’s desktop. It does exactly what its name suggests, sweeping your unfiled files under its virtual rug, and giving quick access to a notepad and your clipboard.
The SplashSak is a water-repelling pouch for your iDevice, which simultaneously protects it from everyday spills and also disguises it as a lunch or a wad of papers or just pretty much anything other than an iPad.
It also has the best name ever.
What if you could go to university and learn the basics of photography for just $5? And what if that university specialized in the camera you actually have: the iPhone? If that prospect gets you jazzed, then welcome to Photojojo University’s Phoneography 101, a course that’ll learn ya to take pictures more better.
Oh man. Writing any kind of text on iOS is easy thanks to Markdown and the profusion of plain text editors in the App Store. But revising that text? Making edits and tracking them between author and editor? You need Microsoft Word for that. You need a computer for that.
But what if there were a Markdown-like markup syntax for plain text copyediting? You know where I’m going with this don’t you? That tool is here, and it’s called Critic Markup.
Borderlands 2 is unequivocally the best first-person shooter available for the Mac. Right now it’s half off at the Steam store, making it $30, meaning you can snag a deal better even than the Mac App Store price of $45.
like its predecessor, Borderlands 2 combines fast-paced combat with role playing concepts like a skill tree, a witty, well-written storyline and a staggering degree of weapon selection. The Steam version also includes multiplayer, something the Mac App Store version doesn’t currently support. Better hurry if you want to catch the deal, though — Borderlands 2 is back at full price tomorrow morning.
Boy, things are really heating up in the minimalist heck-with-all-this-crap-I-only-want-to-carry-one-thing space. Earlier this week, Distil Union unveiled Wally, basically a strip of leather that clings tenaciously to the back of your iPhone, with a small cavity you can fill with cards or cash.
But the $35 Crossover, created over at crowdsource-design site Quirky, looks like it might be even more minimalist than Wally — it’s just two silicone straps that grip the edges of your iPhone. And it comes in all kinds of colors to boot.
I grew up on a farm, and it wasn’t exactly a riot — so I’m surprised anyone would want to simulate farm-life for fun. Then again, we never had a 10-ton Lamborghini tractor. And if we did, I probably wouldn’t have been allowed near it.
Anyway, that’s exactly the sort of thing you can tool around in with Farming Simulator 2013, the latest in a long line of Farming Simulator titles, which just hit the Mac App Store today.
Ever need to quickly send a file over to your iPad from your Mac. Or from your iPad to your Mac? Or between iOS devices? Then you need Instashare, an app which also has the distinction of completing the hat-trick of Insta-apps on your iDevice (Instapaper and Instagram being the other two).
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.
I was thinking that I’d make an incredibly clever play on the Wash’n’Go ads here, drawing a comparison between the new Horizon app, which lets you check the weather and your calendar at the same time. “Use two apps when you leave the house?” I would ask, before wrestling with the punchline, and somehow turning the original “Not me – I just want to Wash… And Go!” into something clever and calendar/weather related.
But as you can plainly see, I failed. I made a cup of delicious coffee instead, and then typed the code to add the break to this post…
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.
We say this often here at Cult of Mac: “This new whatsagizbob will change your life!” Perhaps we say it too often. But I can think of very, very few things I’ve seen where the phrase would ring as true as it does with Rabbit.
Rabbit is a videochat app and platform for Mac unlike anything you’ve seen, designed for immersive video socializing in groups, created by four ex-videogame developers, with mind-boggling attention to detail. You can even screencast movies, and share images and webpages over Rabbit.
And today, it’s been released as a closed beta (but read on to find out how to get your hands on a copy).
Some have the mad iPhone movie-making skillz of an Anderson or a Scorsese. Others, not so much. If you fall in the latter category, don’t worry — just jam some fancy graphics in there with the free Jollyfy app and you’re good to go.
It’s a pretty simple process. Fire up the app, pick a theme (the app’s App Store page says there are hundreds to choose from) and start shooting.
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.
MultiMarkdown, the (surprise!) MultiMarkdown editor for OS X, has just launched its new 2.0 version, and it’s fantastic. If you write articles in MarkDown on your Mac, or even on your iPad, then you should probably just go spend the $5 right now.
