I’m an advocate for carrying the iPhone and iPod naked, sans-a-case. So when it comes to backup batteries, which I feel is a must-have accessory, I opt for solutions that aren’t built into a sleeve or a case. Like Duracell’s instant charger I reviewed last year. The downside to those though? They end up hanging off your device like a pair of wet mittens tethered to your winter coat. But here’s a nice compromise.
The Octopus, which features a 1500 mAH lithium-ion polymer battery good for an extra 4 hours of talk time, 5 hours of video or 18 hours of audio on the iPhone/iPod Touch, temporarily connects to the dock connector when needed but secures itself to the actual device via a set of suction cups on the back. Hence the name, the Octopus. Its battery takes about 3 hours to charge over USB, and roughly the same time to recharge a dead iPhone, but the best feature is the extremely reasonable price tag of around just $30 from Chinavasion.
OK, we didn’t see this one coming: iGrill is a Bluetooth-enabled meat thermometer. That’s right, this bad boy not only displays the temp of whatever you sink the probe into, it also takes that info and transmits it to your iOS device for remote monitoring. Hell, the app itself even features a kitchen timer, alerts for whatever temp you set it to, and more. Because really, you do everything else with your smartphone, so why not use it to free yourself from the tyranny of the kitchen once and for all? Oh, that’s right — because this thing costs $100. See for yourself by hitting up the source link.
EFO has unveiled a new portable speaker called the Rechargeable mini loud-speaker that is black in color. The speaker is rechargeable and will work with the iPhone, iPod, and other audio devices. It can even be connected to a SD card or a flash drive for playback of audio files directly.
The device uses a mini aluminum vibration film loud speaker with high quality audio reproduction. The device can be powered by a USB port or a 5V DC adapter and the internal battery is lithium-ion. When an iPod is docked, the device will charge the iPod back up. Only the iPod can be charged with the speaker.
The output power is 6W RMS and the frequency response is 150-18000Hz. The loud speaker is 1.77-inches and it has magnetic resistance of 4 ohms. Buttons on the device control the track and the speaker dock measures 16cm x 5 cm x 5cm and weighs 273g.
As you might have noticed, this year’s iTunes Rewind let us know the tops of all categories as far as sales and such go. One that stuck out is MLB At Bat 2010 for iPhone and iPod touch, named highest grossing app by Apple, that’s first overall across ALL categories of paid apps in 2010. (And as a bonus, the iPad version was the highest grossing app in the sports category, but who’s counting?) Major League Baseball is counting – this game “At Bat” gave users the first full season of live video for EVERY GAME, being accessed 37 million times during the 2010 season.
The increase in access from last year to this year is monsterous: over 236 percent more people accessed the app from the 2009 season. Users were able to grab access to their MLB.TV subscriptions and watch LIVE broadcast feeds, both home and away games – all with statistical overlays and controls to rewind and pause the game. Intense! ALSO during the off-season you can grab the app for FREE in the Apple app store. Check out the full press release below:
NEW YORK, Dec.12, 2010 /PRNewswire/ — MLB.com At Bat 2010 for iPhone and iPod touch was named the highest grossing application by Apple in its second annual iTunes Rewind for the App Store. At Bat, which delivered the first full season of live video for every game and introduced the At The Ballpark mobile in-venue experience, finished first overall across all categories of paid applications for 2010. In addition, MLB.com At Bat 2010 for iPad was recognized as the highest grossing application in the sports category.
Baseball fans utilized At Bat 2010 to follow Major League Baseball games every day from the application’s debut in Spring Training through the final out of the 2010 World Series. During the 2010 MLB Postseason alone, At Bat was accessed 37 million times, a 236 percent increase over the 2009 Postseason.
Subscribers to At Bat 2010 were able to access their MLB.TV subscriptions to watch live home and away broadcast feeds for every out-of-market regular season game with enhanced features such as statistical overlays and controls to pause or rewind live action. The application also delivered every radio feed, in-game video highlights and MLB.com Gameday.
This year also marked the debut of At The Ballpark, a mobile in-venue experience within At Bat 2010 for iPhone. By utilizing the Apple device’s core location technology, fans were able to check-in to any of the 30 Major League ballparks and, subsequently, receive access to an array of exclusive features, including social media, interactive venue maps, concession menus, personal profiles and video highlights. MLB.com also partnered with Aramark and the Philadelphia Phillies to launch a pilot program in September for mobile food ordering through At Bat 2010.
During the off-season, MLB.com At Bat 2010 is available free from the App Store on iPhone, iPod touch or iPad at www.itunes.com/appstore/. For more information, please visit MLB.com.
If you’re like me, and people call you a hipster because you collect records and still play music on your iPod instead of on your record player which you might or might not actually own, this will interest you severely. Behold a project that was born like all sweet industrial design projects are: as a concept. Inside the book “I Miss My Pencil” there was a project that became this reality: a surface, shaped to recall the size and shape of a record (or a stack of records, rather) or a record player, called C60 (Redux). In this project by IDEO, all you’ve got to do is place your music cards (the size of cassette tapes) down on the surface and your speakers (via your computer) will play the song you desire.
Each time you put down a card, the corresponding song is added to your playlist. Your playlist is decided by how you’ve got the cards in order, starting with the first card you’ve laid down and going clockwise. If you want to stop a song, simply lift it away from the surface. All of this is done with, yes, you guessed it, RFID tags and sensors. I love love love this idea and I would love love love for someone to make it a large enough reality so that I could own one. That’s all I ask in the wooorld!
Speakal makes all sorts of crazy docks for your iPod and iPhone and the latest one is a revamped version of the iPig we saw back in 2008 called the Cool iPig. The Cool iPig is more oval than the round iPig was and has eyes that are slanted. It looks a bit like aliens stopped abducting livestock and started mating with it.
The pigs snout has the controls for playing and pausing the tracks and those eyes are the speakers. The docking section on top of the Cool iPig will dock and charge the iPhone 4 and other iPhone devices as well as dockable iPods. The controls on top of the pig are motion sensing for volume and skipping tracks. The Cool iPig has an internal rechargeable battery and that battery can be removed. It will last for eight hours at a time so you can rock with your iPig outdoors away from an outlet.
The Cool iPig has a total power output of 23W and is a 2.1 speaker system with a sub and stereo speakers. The internal amp has 15W of power and the Cool iPig uses a bass reflex system. A wireless remote allows you to control the music on your iPhone from across the room. Other input sources can be used with the Cool iPig if they have a 3.5mm output. The introductory price for the Cool iPig is $149.99 and you can pre-order now with a promise of delivery before Christmas.
Ruh roh! It appears that because of reasons surrounding the facts that while Costco has carried iPods and iTunes cards from their retail locations for quite a while now, Apple has never allowed them to sell Apple items on their webpage (like other retailers can) and Costco didn’t gain distribution rights for the iPad, Costco’s pulling the plug. Costco is said to be the third largest retailer and the largest membership warehouse dealer in the USA. Them stopping sales of Apple products completely is almost certainly going to be a stinger in Apple’s side.
Costco’s Chief Financial Officer Richard Galanti told the Seattle Times that through a mutual agreement of the companies (Apple and Costco), they’ve decided to stop their sales relationship: “In the past couple months, we agreed to wind down.” On the other hand, Apple spokeswoman Amy Bessette said the company has no comment. Harsh!
PhoneSuit’s no stranger to the reload-and-refuel arena, and just months after ushering out the Primo Battery Cube, along comes this: the Primo Power Core. For all intents and purposes, this is an iPhone-sized battery pack, and it just so happens to be fully capable of charging your iPhone or iPod touch. Unlike the vast majority of alternatives, however, this 8200mAh pack can also rejuvenate an iPad, not to mention a wealth of Android smartphones, your mom’s BlackBerry, a couple of unnamed netbooks (yeah, seriously!) and practically any other handheld gadget that can be juiced via USB. The company throws in a cornucopia of tips for a range of “popular” devices, though high-drain devices like netbooks will need to make use of the 12V port. There’s an external LED charge meter to keep you abreast of how much power remains, and it can be headed to a stocking near you in exchange for $99.95.
As you might well be aware, the new magazine for iPad, Project, was released this morning. Amid reports that it’s both cool and … not innovative enough, comes a punch from Chris Bell (who’s working with the magazine to “guide it along”) at Rupert Murdoch, whose “The Daily” newspaper will perhaps attempt to compete with Project in the future: “As Project went on sale, reports emerged that Rupert Murdoch will soon launch an iPad-only newspaper called The Daily, after it came to him in a dream or something. Which, like all Murdoch products, shall doubtless enrich humankind with its impartial political analysis and rolling coverage of shit exploding. Also: hi-def nudity, fingers crossed. But the point stands: the irascible Aussie despot doesn’t throw his corked hat into the cyber ring until he’s sure of a market.”
That quote above comes direct from a post over at Project’s online blog counterpart – whether this blog will end up working side by side with the magazine is yet to be seen. Chris Bell goes on to describe working on the mag, saying it’s not at all like Minority Report (as some publishers expected (me, for example)), but more “like making a normal paper magazine, but about 1,000 times more fiddly.” — Props to Nick Rizzo for directing us to this article.
Then there’s MacStories who accessed the magazine early on the Italian App Store and posted a bunch of screenshots showing the innards of the first issue of this magazine. One of the first and most interesting aspects of the Projects app answers my previous question — included is a formatted for iPad version of Project’s blog.
MacStories goes on to say that besides the lovely moving pictures and videos, they easily draw comparisons to the functionality seen in other iPad mags such as Wired’s app, Fortune, The New Yorker, and other Conde Nast publications. What’s unsettling is the idea that you can’t select text, you can’t zoom, and there’s basically no options for how you’re going to view what you want to view. MacStories describes the app as a “PDF with some interactive elements and pretty navigation” in it’s user interface.
So basically this magically beautiful magazine doesn’t reinvent the iPad based publication, but does score points for being well designed graphic design wise. Feel free to add your two cents below should you happen upon a copy today. TRON for crying out loud, TRON!
Just in time for AirPrint functionality to arrive with iOS 4.2, Bolle decided to go a different route with its BP-10 printer dock. Really, why get a printer that gives you a wide array of options when you can get one that will only print 4 x 6-inch color prints from a docked device? All that and it will charge your handheld — for £120 (about $190). Available now in the UK.
