review - page 9

Born on Kickstarter, the MobileMount is a nifty little tool that allows you to mount almost any smartphone or tablet to a flat surface. Its design is simple; it consists of two suction cups that are held together by a ball and socket joint, so you can angle the stand in almost any direction while it’s mounted.

Both suction cups utilize a ‘turn-to-lock’ mechanism in an effort to ensure it’s super secure, and that your device never becomes unstuck. And because they’re just simple suction cups, you don’t need to remove cases or chargers from your device before you use them with the MobileMount — provided the case you’re using has a flat surface, of course.

This also means you can use one mount for your iPhone, your iPad, your iPod, and more — you don’t need to carry separate, dedicated accessories for each device. The MobileMount comes in black or white, and costs $39.99. But is it really worth it?

When it comes to Bluetooth speakers, there’s one company’s product against which all others are measured: Jawbone’s iconic Jambox.

There’s a reason for that. Jawbone entered a pretty much empty market segment with a new product that they polished to hell. The Jambox doesn’t sound like sonic nirvana, but it sounds pretty good, and the rest of the details — from the way it feels in the hand, to the way it’s boxed, to the Nintendo-like bleeps and bloops it makes when you pair it or skip a track — are just polished to hell.

Just like with Apple products, though, that polish comes at a premium: the MSRP of the Jambox is $199.99, which is a lot of money for most people. Enter the CUBEDGE EDGE.sound, a new Bluetooth speaker that attempts to do everything that the Jambox does for an MSRP of $50 less.

You shouldn’t judge people purely on first impressions (although many of us do). You probably shouldn’t do the same with apps either. But first impressions count for a lot, and my first impressions of zombie killfest Earn to Die are, well, not that great.

The SmartFlex View is a new iPhone 5 case from Speck that has one handy feature: it’s got a built-in retractable stand, so you can turn your iPhone into a free-standing display — in portrait or landscape mode — at any time in any place, without the need for additional accessories.

This is Rubbernet, a network activity monitoring tool for OS X. If you really need to know what’s hogging your bandwidth, Rubbernet can tell you.

I confess, I was prepared to dismiss Pocket for Mac when I first heard about it.

After all, I thought: I already have Pocket on my Mac. It sits in my browser, where its life began and where I think it belongs. It is software born of the web. It should live on the web.

But I changed my mind pretty fast after trying out the native app, downloaded from the Mac App Store. Because it’s gorgeous.

We all love OS X, but sometimes there are little things about it that annoy, or get in the way, or just don’t work the way we’d like them to. For power users, the solution to these little niggles often lies in Terminal, the command line application that lets experts dive into the heart of OS X’s innards. But for the rest of us, there’s always Mountain Tweaks.

The short form: If you have $60 to spend on a pair of iPhone-ready headphones, buy the RHA SA950is. They are hands-down the best $60 I have ever heard, and better than a lot of cans at several times the price. Move over Porta Pros — there’s a new boss in town.

Quick, answer this one: what’s the quickest, easiest, no-sign-ups required way to get a bunch of photos from your iPhone to the internet, right now?

Instagram? Nope. You’re kind of right, but Instagram has its limitations. And you need to sign up to use it. Apple’s Photo Stream? Closer, but you still need to be using iCloud.

The quickest, easiest and no-sign-uppiest service I’ve yet seen has to be Photoset, a new thing from the people who make Tumblr.

A wonderful new news app from Reuters kicks off this week’s must-have apps list, providing you with an “unprecedented photography experience” that allows you to immerse yourself in the biggest news stories from around the world. Also included in the roundup is a terrific app for making mobile websites from your iPhone, a new weather app, and more.

Kicking off this week’s must-have iOS app is the 1997 violent driving sensation that is Carmageddon. It finally makes its debut on iOS, and it’s an exact port of the original. It’s accompanied by Sonic Jump, Sega’s latest release; Mikey Shorts Halloween, and True Skate.

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MapMyWalk is one of a range of apps from the people at MapMyFitness. It’s not a pretty app, but mapping walks doesn’t have to be pretty to be functional. And it is functional. Mostly.

Tweetbot just dropped on the Mac App Store today, and perhaps the most surprising thing about it is the price. At $20, it’s significantly more expensive than most social networking clients. The thing is, it’s important not to see the number and instantly start making comparisons. You need to look at the price and ask: does this app provide 20 dollars worth of value? Judge it by that standard, and it doesn’t seem so expensive after all.

Apple’s App Store review policy has received a lot of criticism in the past. Often times it rejects apps for a good reason, like if they contain nudity or they’re offensive. But on the odd occasion, its decision to reject a certain app leaves us puzzled. Here’s a good example of that.

Nuskha Labs recently submitted its new app to the App Store. Called Steve Jobs Timeline, it documents the life story of Apple’s co-founder, and includes famous quotes and images. It sports a nice, creative user interface; it’s not offensive, and it doesn’t break Apple’s App Store terms. But the Cupertino company rejected it anyway.

EA’s free Theme Park game for iOS broke down yesterday, and gamers were unable to access the parks they’d spent time building. The company managed to get everything working again, but once the game was back online, users found that all of their progress had been wiped.

The parks they’d build, the achievements they’d earned, and worse, the items they’d bought using in-app purchases were gone.

The Crumpler Nhill Heist is a laptop backpack that “allows you to step off your bike and into work, without looking like you’ve just stepped off your bike.” Built from water resistant 900D/300D rip-stop nylon, with reinforced stitching on all stress points, it aims to outlast its lifetime guarantee by being super tough.

As a great man once sang, there’s 57 channels and nothing on). But that was before iOS and apps came along. Now you don’t need channels. You need something like Vodio.

Another day, another todo app. There’s a bewildering variety of choice in this category, and newer phones all come with Apple’s own Reminders app, which is capable although not to everyone’s taste.

This one, oddly named DOOO, is nicer than most. For two bucks, it combines a thoughtful approach to feature design with stylish looks and a minimal, simple layout.

Kicking off this week’s must-have apps roundup is a brand new Newsstand publication that’s “loosely about technology,” from Instapaper developer Marco Arment. We also have an awesome new email client that turns items in your inbox into tasks and to-dos, a great little iPhone app for remembering recommendations, the ultimate unarchiver, and more.

This week’s must-have apps roundup includes two classic console games that have been reborn on iOS, including Sega’s hugely enjoyable Crazy Taxi, and Acclaim’s 1999 classic Re-Volt — both of which first made their debut on the Dreamcast. It also includes a great little action platformer called Ivy The Kiwi?, a wonderful puzzle game called Girls Like Robots, and more.

Going down a storm on the App Store this week is the brand new version of Crazy Taxi from Sega. Yes, it’s just like Crazy Taxi you used to play a decade ago. And that’s a good thing.

There’s been a lot of hoopla today about Rockmelt, a free new iPad app for browsing the web. Everyone keeps calling Rockmelt a browser, but I disagree. This is not what I call a browser. It’s a feed reader.

The Don’t Panic case is like a pair of comfy slippers for your iPad. As the name suggests, just using it is relaxing, the iPad-acessory equivalent of a valium or a well-mixed Old Fashioned at the end of a long day.

The floppy felt and leather sleeve is also a little like your embarrassing uncle. He has some horrible habits, and annoys you to death some times, but you can’t help loving him despite his foibles.

This is Dolphin. It’s a neat web browser for iPhone. You could easily be forgiven for saying: “What’s the point of having an extra browser? Mobile Safari does everything I need.”

Which is true. Safari does everything you need. But try Dolphin for just a few minutes, and you’ll discover a browser that does everything you need but in a totally different way. A way that’s much better suited to using on your phone while you’re moving around.

The Speck PixelSkin HD is a thermoplastic polyurethane (TPU) case that’s designed to give you “slim and smooth” protection for your iPhone 5, while offering “grippyness [sic] with high-contrast matte pixels.”

Its raised bezel aims to keep your iPhone’s display free from scuffs and scratches should you drop it on its face, while the rubberized covers for the volume keys and sleep/wake button prevent fluff and grime from gathering within nooks and crannies.

The PixelSkin HD comes in a variety of colors — including red, purple, blue, black, and grey, and it’s priced at just under $30. The PixelSkin HD was one of my favorite “simple” cases for iPhone 4S, so will it retain that status for the iPhone 5?