reviews - page 6

The best iPad case I ever had was the red leather Smart Cover for the iPad 2 (and iPads 3 and 4). It looked and felt great, and only ever got better with age. It’s sturdy (the Lady is still using it on her iPad 3), and while the metal hinge has worn a shiny pattern into the iPad’s edge, it grips way better than the plastic-hinged covers for the Air and Mini.

In short, I loved the leather. To get an Apple-made leather cover for the iPad mini, though, you need to buy the Smart Case, which is a case, and regular readers will know I’m not so hot on cases thanks to their usual bulk and weight.

So how does the crazily overpriced Smart Case shape up? Pretty damn well.

For the iPad I use at home, I want minimal bulk. I’m willing to sacrifice protection for that privilege, but I want to be able to use my iPad 3 in as close to the original form factor as possible.

For iPads I’ve used with kids in classrooms, or ones that might be used in hospitals or in the enterprise, I’d rather have more protection, even if it means a sacrifice of heavier, bulkier, proportions.

Otterbox has long been the industry standard super-high protection case, but this new entry into the field, the K Kuvs Klover iPad Case is a strong contender for just as much protection for half the price.

What’s this? A review of the Retina iPad mini almost a month after launch? That’s right. And although I haven’t been using my new mini for that long, I’ve been using for more than the two or three hours logged by most of the folks who “reviewed” it on launch.

So if you are wondering if the new mini is noticeably heavier than the old one, or if it takes all night to charge it, or whether an iPad even needs LTE, then read on.

I turn down a lot of offers to review gadgets, either because I figure that you folks won’t care about whatever it is the PR folks are trying to hawk, or because it’s obvious that the product is too lame even to ridicule on these pages.

And sometimes it’s because I’m not equipped to review the item in question. I almost turned down the iOgrapher for this reason, as I have no LED lighting rigs; I recently gave away my tripod and I almost never shoot video. But I’m glad i didn’t, as the iOgrapher turns out to be a pretty excellent all-round iPhoneography case for the iPad mini.

When I opened up the package containing the SlipStopper, there was a little card inside from my contact Mark. It read “Try sticking your iPad mini on a window, great party trick :)”

I don’t go to may parties these days, but I tried it at home and in the office and there reaction was the same both times: amazement — quickly followed by fear.

There are tons of wireless keyboards on the market these days for all sorts of prices. Those for portable devcies like the iPad are even more numerous, and of wildly divergent quality. I’ve long been a fan of the Logitech series of bluetooth keyboards, as it lights up and can connect to any device, Mac or otherwise, with a quick tap.

The MiniSuit BlueBoard is a nicely designed keyboard that connects via Bluetooth to any computing device, but it is primarily designed as an iPad (or other tablet) stand. It’s solidly constructed from aluminum and the keys are responsive and accurate. The price to be paid, here, though, for a full-sized keyboard, is one of size and bulkiness: I wouldn’t want to have to carry this around as a permanent bit of kit.

The MiStand looks like the mystery tool you might find at the back of a machine shop, especially in the industrial blue colorway of my test unit. It has a utilitarian angularity, a huge, over-engineered ball joint and it is as sturdy as anything you have in your home. It’s also just about the best iPad desk stand I’ve ever used.

I have one of Doxie’s neat candybar-shaped paper scanners, and it’s great for getting through piles of paper. I can scan bills, flyers, photos and even whole books – I ripped all the pages from a beloved but falling-apart cookbook and scanned the pages one at a time to make a PDF.

But for anything less sheet-shaped, it’s useless. And often the next best option – your iPhone’s camera – isn’t much better. You have to focus it, hold it steady, and somehow wedge the pages of your Moleskine notebook open with one hand while lining up your scanning app with the other

That’s the slot that Doxie’s Flip wants to fill. It anything that’s not a big sheet of paper. Although it can kinda do that too.

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Using a laptop on your lap is a pretty bad idea. Not only does it get hot, it also forces you to hunch your back or neck, and if you have any kind of carpal-tunnel problems they’ll make themselves painfully obvious pretty quick.

The Curb only fixes one of these, but it does do a pretty good job.

At first look, the new Olloclip 4-In–1 isn’t something you’d buy if you already own the original. After all, it only has an extra macro lens to add to the existing macro lens, the fisheye and the wideangle.

But if you’re the kind of person who already bought an Olloclip, you clearly value the iPhone as more than a snapshot camera. And the optical improvements to the Olloclip might just tempt you to upgrade.

Take a look in your local bike emporium and you’ll see zillions of options for mounting your iPhone onto your handlebars. Wahoo’s PROTKT, as its name suggests, goes for boxy protection above all else, although the iPhone within remains quite usable. But should you go for this coddling case, or would you be better off with a super-simple silicone band?

If you read Ulysses III 1.1’s release notes, you’d be forgiven for thinking that the Soulmen (Ulysses’ developers) have just aded a few features that should really have been in v1.1. But take it for a spin and you’ll see that the the app has been polished in so many places that it feels both completely familiar and full of new tweaks.

Fans of Games Magazine will know the puzzles in developer Casual Labs’ Paint It Back as “Paint by Numbers.” Owners of the Nintendo DS portable system might recognize them as Picross, and giant puzzle nerds might know them as Nonograms for Non Ishida, the Japanese graphics editor who invented them.

The point is that Paint It Black is not doing anything new; this puzzle type, in which solvers use logic to determine which squares in a grid to fill in to make a picture, is readily available a lot of places. But that’s not to say that this app is a boring rehash.

In fact, whether you’re a fan of Nonograms or picking them up for the first time, Paint It Black has a lot to offer.

If you’re looking for an ultra-simple dock, or just for a way to stop your iPhone skittering across your desk every time you snap it’s cable, then you might like the Rolio from Blue Lounge. Not only is it one of the most versatile iPhone and iPad charging accessories around, it’s also one of the most affordable.

Back in March we took a look at the SIMPLcase, an iPhone case which stored your spare SIM cards and a SIM tray eject tool inside. One Kickstarter campaign and several months later, the SIMPLcase is a shipping product, and one which I which I have been testing out in a recent move from sunny Barcelona to gray Germany.

Does the SIMPLcase pass? Yup. With flying colors, in fact.

Braven’s 855S is the companion speaker to the 850. The internals are much the same, but the cases are as different as can be, with the heavy, rubberised 855S looking more like something you’d find in a military tank rather than on a tasteful shelf next to your fish tank.

That said, it looks and feels great. But how does it sound?

DP review has tested the iPhone 5S’s camera and – surprise – it’s awesome. At ten long pages (all requiring a click to reach, as is DP Review’s annoying style) it’s an epic read that you’ll probably want to add to your Instapaper queue, but you can always skip to the conclusion and read the rather amusing list of “bad” points that the reviewers have come up with to make the article “balanced.”

Several months ago I decided that I needed to change the way I work. Like most bloggers, I spend the majority of the day at my desk. I’m 6’2″ and over the years I’ve developed not-so-great posture by hunching over my computer screen. The back and neck pain eventually got so bad that I realized I needed to change up my workspace.

I’d heard a lot about standing desks, so I decided to look into getting one. After researching, I zeroed in on the NewHeights electric desk. I’ve been using it for the past several months, and now I can never go back.

Time to come clean: I play guitar and sing in a disco band. I know, I know, the backlash against that kind of music has been going on since 1977. Trust me, I know.

But the way people respond to this still-valid, we-use-real-instruments form of music is so much better than the way they used to when I played guitar in modern or classic rock bands. In those days, the most reaction I’d see in an audience was a foot tap, or maybe–if I was lucky–a head bob or two. Happy, gorgeous people dancing their butts off? So much more fun.

Now, playing in a cover band requires knowing a lot of music, like the chords for the 50 plus songs that we play. As I also take on half the lead singing duties, so I’m required to know the lyrics as well. I don’t do this for a living; I do it for fun and some beer and gear money. I don’t have tons of time to memorize all those songs, let alone the new ones we learn every few months. So I use lyric sheets. I used to use them on paper, but boy is that annoyingly old school and easily lost.

Now I use my iPad (and an amazing app called GigBook) to organize and keep track of my lyric sheets. And I also use the incomparable iKlip 2 iPad holder to attach that iPad to the microphone stand right in front of me.

iOS 7’s Photos and Camera apps have been completely redesigned. Or rather, the Photos app has, with the Camera app getting some great updates, but changing very little functionally (A good thing, too – it was always easy to use).

So what’s changed? Pull up a beanbag, put on your favorite Barry White playlist and pour yourself a glass of delicious wine, while we take a look at everything new.

iOS 7 is much more than a pretty face. Early “news” reporting focussed on the new look provided at the last minute by Jony Ive and team, but the inner workings of the new OS have clearly been under development for a lot longer. So, try to look past the bright colors, blurred popovers and beautiful parallax for a moment, and join us as we take a tour of the best new features of iOS 7.

The Nimblstand is an accessory for the Apple wireless keyboard, a kind of organizer and iPad stand which can be used on the desk or the lap. As such, it needs to be compared to the InCase Origami Workstation, the established gold standard for such things.

Which isn’t to say that the Nimblstand doesn’t have its own distinguishing features.

Robot Loves Kitty is the husband and wife team that lived in a treehouse to save money while they ran a Kickstarter project for the game that became Legend of Dungeon.

It’s out now on Mac, PC, and Linux, and it’s a brilliant combination of high tech, retro-graphics, and a strong sense of irony, not to mention whimsy. When I chatted with Alix Stolzer (Kitty) at PAX this year, she mentioned that she and Caleb Goble (Robot) liked vastly different types of games, so they decided to make one they could play together.

From those humble beginnings, they’ve succeeded, at least, in making a game that allows up to four players to explore procedurally generated dungeons together, to fight various monsters, explore environments, and try to stay alive. The game works with keyboard and mouse or console-style controllers, with a real-time battle system. Also, there are funny hats! If you take some time to give this one a play; you won’t be disappointed.

It’s hard to exaggerate the effect that stereo has on sound. Sure, it gives you different sounds from the left and right speakers, positioning the musical instruments or the on-screen action in 3-D space, but it also opens up the sound and makes it seem a lot bigger… Even when used with tiny speakers.

And while candy-bar all-in-one speakers like the Jambox pack in stereo speakers and stretch the soundstage using electronic trickery, it turns out that old-fashioned physical separation still works great. Which is why the otherwise average Earshots speakers are worth a listen.

I’m going to get right to it here: The Room, an escape game by developer Fireproof Studios, is the best mobile title I’ve ever played. You can read the rest of the review if you want, but it’s basically going to be versions of that.

I know “best ever” is a bold statement, though, so let me back it up: The Room, which is available for both iPad and iPhone–the latter as The Room Pocket, I assume because it fits in your pocket and not because it’s about a pocket in which someone stores rooms–has beautiful graphics, clever puzzles, and simple, responsive touch controls that actually work.