stands - page 6

1. Fact: I carry my iPad almost naked (the iPad is naked — not me thank God).
2. Fact: I often want to prop the thing up in portrait mode to use with a Bluetooth keyboard
3. Fact: Penguins and polar bears would never meet in the wild.
4. Fact: Most portrait-capable iPad stands are just too unwieldy to live in a bag permanently.

Considering these amazing facts, it should come as no surprise that I’m about to tell you about a stand which will in fact hold the iPad in pretty much any orientation. What’s more, it does it whilst looking like a love egg that has sprouted a long, long pair of huggy arms. Let’s be honest — it’s pretty creepy-looking.

Sometimes a problem is solved by sweating the details until a solution is reached. A solution so elegant that it appears to be the only possible answer to the problem. A solution so thoroughly worked through that it seems effortless.

Other times, the designer will think of something, grab the first parts that comes to hand and call it good. The solution might work, but it won’t be getting stocked at the Apple Store any time soon. The Clutch is one such solution.

Sometimes it’s the little luxuries in life that make a difference. Don’t have a place to store your headphones at your desk? You may need Just Mobile’s new HeadStand. Well, you probably don’t need it, but you’ll want it.

Sculpted from polished aluminum in a way that would probably make Jony Ive shed a tear of joy, the HeadStand suspends your plush headphones gracefully in the air.

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?

Just Mobile’s new Alurack is a clever solution to the question “Where do I put my stupid MacBook while I’m using it with an external monitor?”

The Alurack’s answer is “Hang it,” either from the back of a Cinema Display or from your iMac.

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.

Hate, nay loathe the horizontal? Does laying down leave you feeling unseemly? Does landscape orientation drive you crazy? Would you rather live in a tiny apartment at the top of a skyscraper than in a luxurious two-story country home? Then NewerTech’s new NuStand Alloy stands are for you.

Just Mobile is one of my favorite third-party accessory makers for Apple products. They make beautifully minimal stands, chargers, styluses, and other random accessories for iPhone, iPad and Mac. What makes Just Mobile’s stuff great is that most of their products look like they were designed by Apple itself, and that’s no exaggeration—just take a look at their catalog. It’s all great.

A couple of the newest products to be announced by Just Mobile include the AluBase and AluRack MacBook mounts.

It has been brought to my attention that people still use laptop computers when they travel. Instead of tossing a keyboard in with their iPad and calling it good, these masochists lug along an entire MacBook with them, just to do some work.

For these people, the Stukk stand exists. It is super-light and folds up ultra-small, helping you to not break your shoulder as you lug your behemoth around with you, and can be quickly assembled to keep your hot-running machine cool. Or cooler, at least.

PadPivot is one of those gadgets which at first appears completely absurd, but then grows on you as you see what it can do. It starts off looking like an over-engineered solution for an non- problem: putting an iPad on your lap. But then you see it stick, prop, and fold, and it all starts to look rather compelling.

Today, I bring you news of the Smartphone Coaster, an innovation that is clearly set to take the world by storm. Well, the world of promotional marketing, at least.

What is it? The Smartphone Coaster is a steel kickstand which can be branded with your company’s logo, thus spreading your corporate message to the world whilst simultaneously depleting our precious Earth’s limited supply of minerals. Congratulations: you hate the future.

Tripod and lighting supremo Manfrotto — the Italian company whose name seems to combine the words “man” and “frottage” — is finally getting in on the iPhonegraphy game. And its Klyp looks to be every bit as sturdy and well thought out as the rest of its products.

Some gadget accessories just keep coming back, getting useful again after they've been sat at the back of a kitchen drawer of a closet for a few months, or even a few years. I have an acrylic business-card display thingy which has done duty as an iPad 1 stand, a speaker hook, a phone charging station and –right now — an iPad 3 movie-watching stand. And I thought €8 was expensive for a piece of bent Perspex.

The ItFits looks like that kind of accessory. It bends to fit almost any small phone-sized gadget, and acts as both a stand and a clip. Let's take a look:

Twelve South has today announced a new height-adjustable stand for iMac called HiRise, which claims the be the first adjustable stand to offer a built-in storage bay — the perfect place to store your external hard drives, cables, discs, and even your wallet and keys.

Got an iPhone 5? Missing the Glif stand/tripod adapter/icon that fits your old, fat, ugly (not to mention slooowwww) iPhone 4/S like a (right-angled plastic) glove?

Don’t worry: by simply spending more money, you can secure yourself a brand new, elongated and slenderized version of the Glif for your new iPhone.

$9. Nine lousy dollars. With nine bucks, there’s no way you could make an iPhone stand this good, even buying parts from the cheapest of hardware stores. Hell, the only way to make a functional iPhone holder with $9 is to head to the bank, buy a roll of quarters and sit the iPhone up on top.

Which is hardly as elegant as this very practical-looking Pi Mount.

Yes, I’m reviewing another iPhone wallet case. But this is the last one on my pile of things to review — at least for now. Built by NutKase, this particular model is manufactured from thick leather that comes in black or red, and it boasts three card slots and a “hidden” cash pocket.

If you buy the black version, you get an elasticated band that keeps the wallet closed while its not in use; while the red version features a more elegant leather button clasp.

Both models come with a unique selling point that I’m yet to find in another wallet case: a built-in magnetic stand that allows you to elevate your device for FaceTime calls, typing with an external keyboard, or watching movies — wherever you may be.

Imagine if your took the ultimate hippy artifact (apart from the roach clip, I guess), and combined it with the ultimate must-have hi-tech accessory. That’s right: the beanbag chair meets the microfiber cloth.

Now, further imagine that you shrunk the result, and added some fabric designs that would be more at home on a corporate robot’s necktie than on a filthy 60s dropout’s cheap furniture.

Now, behold the result of your crazed imagination: the Toddy Wedge, (not to be confused with the “Todd Wedgie, which was an unfortunate schoolyard event that led directly to the laugh-a-minute movies Welcome to the Dollhouse and Happiness)

Paper. Ugh. Whenever somebody hands me a business card, a flyer or forces me to use a printer boarding pass sigh, my shoulders drop a little and I weep for the short-sighted idiots behind these backward-looking incidents.

Usually I just snap a photo with my iPad’s camera and recycle the offending ex-tree. But sometimes all I need is a to copy a few lines of info. This is, I guess, where the Radiul Mobile comes in.

You know what’s really easy? Holding the iPad. You know what’s even easier? Not spending $100. Which is why the XFLEX has its work cut out: it’s a flexible, heavy-footed iPad stand which costs more than a crappy pre-pay Android phone.

The Halopad is — not surprisingly — an iPad stand in the shape of a halo. Not that you’ll find this halo floating over the heads of saintly prophets — instead it is simply a chunky, lightweight plastic ring which has slots cut into it for propping the iPad at various angles. It’s simple, it’s cheap, and it’s not ugly.

Using your iPad on a plane or a train can be a frustrating experience, especially if you’re attempting to use a wireless keyboard at the same time. But the Arctic Flight is a new Kickstarter project that hopes to change that. It’s a lightweight case and stand that’s fully adjustable and designed specifically for use in flight.

It fits perfectly onto those tiny pull-down trays, and it has one novel feature than means you’ll never have to hold onto your iPad through a whole movie again.

There are a few ways to make in iPad easier to hold, and it seems that these methods are getting weirder and weirder. The most obvious answer, employed by almost everyone, is to put the tablet into a case. It’s convenient, protective and — most importantly — it doesn’t change the basic shape of the iPad within.

Another way would be to stick a handle on the thing, making it hard to put into a bag, not to mention making the user — you, in other words — look stupid. And you don’t like to look stupid, do you?

A great example of this second school of thought is Octa’s Tablet Tail, a ridiculous concoction which puts a plastic whale tail on the back of the iPad. Seriously.

An iPad stand made from a pair of hammers, a screwdriver and some old coins and bolts. What could possibly go wrong? This amazing iPad stand was put together by Etsy makers Docks4iPods, and works just fine for the iPads 2 and 3. It will also take up more than its fair share of counter or desk space, and the screwdriver can be moved by loosening the wing-nuts and rotating it further back, letting you angle the iPad a little lower.

The Ledge, from designer Chris Blackburn, is the first iPad wall mount I would actually consider buying. Instead of the usual bulky cases with matching wall-mounted bayonet, the Ledge is just what its name suggests: a solid aluminum ledge which sticks to the wall.