Category Archives: Hardware

iSpot Brings 4G To Your Apple Devices

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iSpot Brings 4G To Your Apple Devices is a post from: Best Iphone Apps Review Website

4G, up to now, is the mythical double rainbow that AT&T just can’t seem to find. While other carriers are moving to a 4G standard, AT&T hasn’t quite grasped the new technology, meaning that your Apple devices will be stuck in 3G land if you are stuck with AT&T.

There is a solution though, and it comes in a cute little, Magic Mouse-like package. The iSpot, from Clearwire, is a 4G hotspot that connects up to 8 Apple devices (the device is configured to filter based on MAC address, meaning that only Apple devices are allowed) to the 4G network via WiFi. You do have to be in a Clearwire area for it to work well, but if you are, you’ll get blinding 4G speeds that only space men have witnessed.

Unfortunately, unlike the PC version of the same product, the iSpot is unable to fall back to the 3G network if you aren’t in 4G range. So if you happen to live in the Phoenix, AZ metro area like myself, you are out of luck, but next time you go to Amarillo, TX, you’re golden. Needless to say, the coverage is spotty.

Check out the Clearwire website for pricing details, and that wonderful coverage map.

[Source: ZDnet]

[ iSpot Brings 4G To Your Apple Devices is a post from 148Apps ]


An iPhone Owner’s Travel Lessons Learned From Comic-Con

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An iPhone Owner’s Travel Lessons Learned From Comic-Con is a post from: Best Iphone Apps Review Website

As iPhone owners may know, it’s far from a perfect device, and its US carrier is far from perfect either. Heading out to one of the biggest celebrations of geek culture, the infamous San Diego Comic-Con, for the first time, I realized how much these issues will come to light when you’re out and about with thousands of your closest fellow geeks, nerds, otaku, et cetera. I came back with 4 important things to remember the next time I or any other iPhone owner heads out to a big trip with their iPhone in tow.

1. Phones will die. Prepare accordingly.

The iPhone is not a paragon of extensive battery life. Thankfully, the various extended life battery packs that are available can be a lifesaver for the iPhone owner. If you’re heading out to Comic-Con, picking up a couple is a very good idea, as otherwise your phone will die. Some columnists would make it a point to say “you’re hanging out with real people, enjoy their presence,” but we all know sometimes you need to check your tweets, or text someone to figure out what’s going on. Having an actual working phone is better than not having one, and a backup battery will go a long way towards preventing that from happening.

Now, you’ll want to make sure that your backup battery actually works. I had 2 batteries to help charge my iPhone, a 1900 mAh battery, and an 800 mAh battery that was small enough to carry around as a key fob. I hadn’t charged my larger capacity backup battery in months, and a few days before I left, I decided to charge it up, only to discover that I hadn’t used it in so long that it wouldn’t hold a charge. Well, no matter, I still had my 800 mAh backup battery, which charges via mini USB, and I had a mini USB wall charger that I brought along with my camera. But the fool in me failed to make sure said wall charger would work with my backup battery. I sure regretted this when I discovered it wouldn’t charge, and I had no mini USB cable with me as well, somehow. I was at the mercy of my 2 year old iPhone 3G’s stock battery. It suffered at times, to say the least.

Of course, even if you can keep your phone alive, other people’s phones won’t be so lucky. Set up times and places to meet so that if you do lose contact with them, you won’t be lost and wandering a strange city looking for people out amongst thousands and thousands of geeks.

2. Cellular data access will be spotty.

Speaking of thousands and thousands of geeks, let’s just say that trying to access the internet will often be problematic. Between spotty signal areas and people desperately trying to access whatever open wifi hotspot is available, you will often be without internet. At SDCC, there were often spots where I dropped to EDGE or lost data access entirely in and around the convention center. Amazingly, the speeds when 3G was available were not too bad, but this may be due to the fact that no one was on it because they couldn’t get access from where they most wanted to use it, like in Ballroom 20, where many popular panels were, and wifi access was reportedly spotty. And if you are an iPhone owner, stay away from the Indigo Ballroom at the Hilton Bayfront entirely. You will get no service in the room, and the wifi did not work at all. Those were the scariest 5 hours of my life being ’stuck’ in that room attending panels I wanted to see, but could tell no one about.

3. Wifi: More reliable, but only slightly.

While cellular data services are often interrupted, there’s at least wifi available, right? Well, it depends. At the San Diego Convention Center, there were spots where the provided free wifi worked spectacularly, especially on the second floor and in certain areas of the show floor. Tweeting, checking email, and writing up reports on panels was reliable, and it worked well. But then there were times where wifi would be unavailable, or my iPad and iPhone would not connect to the networks at all. While it still trumped AT&T’s reception at times, just remember whenever you see wifi networks around that any idiot can plug in a router and get it broadcasting a connection. Getting it to work properly is a bigger challenge, and one that many people apparently aren’t set to accomplish.

Also, any network named “Free Public Wifi” isn’t going to work. Just trust me on this one.

Now, while internet access on the go may be a sticky situation, at least you have the comfort of your hotel room’s wifi, right? Well, sadly, most hotels have decided to charge you for wifi, such as the Marriott Hotel & Marina which wanted $12.95 for daily wifi access. This is where you might want to shell out for tethering, even if it’s just for one month, that $20 you spend to just use your iPhone as your internet access is well worth it, especially if you can find a way to share it with other devices besides a laptop. If you have a jailbroken iPhone, MyWi is a great alternative: it costs $19.95, but the utility of being able to use your iPhone as a wifi router can’t be overstated. Also, you could recoup your costs by loaning other people temporary access to your tethered internet connection.

4. Bring a real camera.

This especially applies to older iPhones, but bring yourself a camera that can quickly and reliably take pictures. San Diego Comic-Con especially is a place where unique picture opportunities can pop up, and you don’t want to spend half a minute trying to open up the camera on your iPhone to take a picture of Captain America fighting Blanka while you wait in line for free ice cream bars. This is a weird alternate universe where people wearing strange costumes is almost normal, where you could easily run into celebrities just wandering around, and you want to make sure you can take good footage. Your iPhone just isn’t reliable enough for that. Bring a real camera.

If you keep these tips in mind, the only thing stopping you from having an enjoyable experience at the next San Diego Comic-Con or whatever trip you take will be whatever stupid things you or other people do. And of course, it’s more opportunities to blame AT&T for making your life one huge first world problem. Take it and enjoy it, people.

[ An iPhone Owner’s Travel Lessons Learned From Comic-Con is a post from 148Apps ]


Macworld’s September Cover – Made With iPhone

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Macworld’s September Cover – Made With iPhone is a post from: Best Iphone Apps Review Website

For those of you who doubt the capabilities of the iPhone 4 for photo taking and editing, the cover of the September issue of Macworld is made entirely on an iPhone 4.

Macworld’s contributing photographer, Peter Selanger, who has “shot almost every photograph in the pages of the magazine over the past few years”, had apparently been “tinkering with the idea of shooting a Macworld cover with an iPhone for some time”. When he saw that the iPhone 4 was going to have a high-quality 5 megapixel camera, the time became now.

Using only the regular camera (no soldered on lens of any kind) and two apps, Perer was able to make a high quality shot, pretty enough for a cover, of none other than the iPhone 4 itself.

“For the most part, my strategy for photographing the cover didn’t change from how I normally would shoot,” Peter says in a blog post about the process. “I still had my normal set with lots of lights, flags and stands. I did have to change my light source from strobes to tungsten lights because the iPhone can’t sync with studio strobes.”

“The iPhone’s Retina display was truly awesome,” he says. “I was really able to see the detail in the photo as I was shooting. It made me wish Apple produced all its monitors this way. The final photo was dust-free and looked great. I was extremely impressed with the detail that the iPhone was able to capture.”

In case anyone wants to know, Peter used PhotoForge for some minor color correcting and Resize-Photo to make the shot large enough for the magazine cover.

[Source: Macworld]

[ Macworld’s September Cover – Made With iPhone is a post from 148Apps ]


Arctic Sound P311 Bluetooth Stereo Headset

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Arctic Sound P311 Bluetooth Stereo Headset is a post from: Best Iphone Apps Review Website

As you know, its not often that we do hardware reviews, and usual we reserve those for the hardware we really like.  This is one of those cases.  Arctic Sound released their new Bluetooth P311 headset last week, and we got our hands on a unit.  

At first when we got the information about the price ($37.95), we were a little concerned.  At under $40, how much quality can you really pack into a pair of headphones?  Turns out, a lot.

First the good.  Syncing these to our iPhone was super easy.  The headset was immediately picked up and over a week of real use (1-2 hours a day), the connection never needed to be reset.  Other headsets have required reconnecting, but not these.

The sound quality is decent at low and mid volume levels, the higher volume levels start to distort, but I’m never a fan of listening to music that loud in a headset since i don’t want to end up with hearing aids later in life.  On a scale of 1-10 for volume, the headset maintains a decent quality sound up to 8.

The other thing we really like about these is that the ear pieces have a faux leather cushion on them (much like our much more expensive non-bluetooth Bose set).  This makes them easy to wear on your head for over an hour and the fact that they wrap behind your head instead of over your head ensures that they stay on and not shift around much.

If a call comes in during a song, the headset lets you know and the large phone button on the Arctic Sounds quickly switches from the music to the call.  The fact that you can use the headset to take a call (due to the built in mic) is a huge bonus.  Did I mention these are only $37.95???

In addition, Arctic Sound made storing this headset really easy.  You can simply fold the earbuds towards the middle and they neatly fall into place inside a hard carrying case (much like the one that comes with our Bose set).

The controls for the headset are found on one of the speakers and allow you to do a bunch of different functions.  The center button acts as the main control.  It allows you to turn the unit on and off, sync the first time with your device, and answer and disconnect calls.  There are also 4 other buttons that surround that button which control volume and skipping ahead and back when listening to your iPod.  There are also 2 different colored LEDS which provide status on the headset.  The blue color when your connected and ready to receive sound, and the red when your turning off the device.

The only complaint that we have is that the volume and forward / back buttons are oddly placed.  Instead of being across from each other, they are right next to each other and we had to use these a few times before we stopped hitting the advance song button across from the volume control when we wanted to adjust the volume level.  But this is a minor issue that quickly evaporates after you use these for a while.

Overall, we give the Arctic Sound P311’s a 9.5 out of 10.  This is a LOT of headphones for $37.95.  If you want decent sound, the ability to take calls, easy storage with a hardshell case, and spend under $40, don’t waste time looking at anything else.  We highly recommend the Arctic Sound P311’s.


iPad or Kindle? A Flawed, but Popular, Comparison

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iPad or Kindle? A Flawed, but Popular, Comparison is a post from: Best Iphone Apps Review Website

Most people who have seen my new iPad react with the same question, “should I get this or the Kindle?” Apple, obviously, intended its iPad to be perceived as much more than an eBook reader. Yet the much publicized launch of the iBookstore, along with the iPad’s slim form factor, have led many consumers to perceive the iPad as an expensive eBook reader.

The Kindle is the Premier eBook Reader

Amazon’s Kindle 2

The Kindle was launched solely as an eBook reader and is marketed as such. Jeff Bezos, on introducing the device, said of the Kindle that “it’s so ambitious to take something as highly evolved as the book and improve on it. And maybe even change the way people read.” Amazon has definitely done much of the legwork in improving the acceptability of the eBook as a new medium for written material. Amazon’s true innovation was bringing E-Ink technology to the consumer market, along with doing the technical legwork to simplify the reading experience. At its core, the Kindle is a delivery device – a user purchases a book as they would online and finds it available for reading seconds later.

The reading experience does everything it can to mimic the experience of paper, all of which is aided by E-Ink. The screen is technology’s response to those who complained that they would never be able to read a book on a traditional LCD screen or a laptop. The Kindle itself is merely the size of a large paperback and is lighter than most printed books. The Kindle is Bezos’ effort to translate the book for the digital age, and he has largely succeeded in providing a popular and widely accepted new platform.

The iPad as an eBook Reader

Apple’s iPad with iBooks

The iPad has benefited from terrific interest from both book publishers and book retailers. As a consequence we’ve seen innovative new packages like the Vook and traditional books from retailers like B&N, Amazon, and more. While the Kindle has a terrific – and probably the largest – bookstore, the iPad offers more choices for where you get your ebooks.

There’s Apple’s iBooks, Amazon’s Kindle reading app, B&N’s new iPad reader, and more. The three largest players each offer different solutions to the eBook problem. iBooks tries to mimic the feel of a physical book, utilizing a color UI with beautifully rendered page turns. The Kindle’s UI is black and white and encourages the same type of user interaction as the physical Kindle – a simple tap on the side of the screen changes pages in a fluid transition not as visually distracting as that of iBooks. B&N’s app allows users to choose from dozens of different visual settings but maintains the same fluid page transitions as Amazon’s Kindle app. Only the iBooks app has a store in-app; the others force the reader to go to Safari to purchase books. This is a definite snag in the clear workflow Bezos presented with the original Kindle, but one that I’m sure both B&N and Amazon will surmount in future applications.

The iPad’s reflective LCD screen probably isn’t the best for simply reading a book. It’s a pain in the sun, where it’s nearly impossible to see the text on a page. E-Ink mainly solves this problem with its screen. People who have issues reading for long periods of time on their laptops may wish to reconsider an iPad purchase if it’s intended solely as an eBook reader. While the reading experience is cleaner and more enjoyable, it’s the same experience as the backlit screens most notebooks include. In addition, the iPad’s battery life is rated at 10 hours, enough for most commuters but nowhere near the weeks the Kindle can last for.

The iPad as a Platform: Bigger Than Books

A Vook on the iPad

The key differentiator between the two comes when we move beyond the simple eBook reading features. The Kindle includes a browser, but not one that functions nearly as well as the iPad’s. It’s black and white and renders incredibly slowly due to the E-Ink screen technology. The iPad’s Safari browser is widely regarded as one of the best on a mobile platform.

I’ve always seen the iPad as more than a traditional book reader as well. The Kindle simply translates the book reading experience into the digital age but strives not to completely alter the way we experience books. New features like Amazon’s Popular Highlights add subtle suggestions about the importance of a passage but do not redefine the reading workflow. Cool ideas like the aforementioned Vook change the reading experience by adding videos, multimedia, more information about certain topics (with links) and more. Could the iPad help the form of the written word change? Only time, and developers, will tell.

Decisions, Decisions
Those of you struggling with the decision to purchase an iPad or a Kindle might want to do some soul searching. What do you want from your portable device? Just books and nothing more? Buy a Kindle – that’s what it’s meant for. But if you’re looking for a small computer, with thousands of different and innovative new applications that could redefine reading, the iPad is for you.

[ iPad or Kindle? A Flawed, but Popular, Comparison is a post from 148Apps ]


Has Apple Lost Another 4G iPhone? More Photos And Video

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Has Apple Lost Another 4G iPhone? More Photos And Video is a post from: Best Iphone Apps Review Website

After the media circus surrounding Gizmodo and its potentially lost/stolen iPhone 4G prototype last month, it seems there’s another iPhone 4G in the wild. Possibly not a prototype this time.

Mac Rumors has been provided with a link to a Vietnamese forum, Taoviet.vn, where more pictures of the new iPhone have been posted. According to a Mac Rumors’ source, the device was purchased in the USA along with an iPad. The device is shown from a number of new angles and a teardown of the product is also shown.

A video of the device has been posted to YouTube (see below).

Little new information has been provided by these pictures, however the iPhone’s casing shows that it’s a 16GB model, whereas Gizmodo’s featured XXXGB on the back.

The casing appears more polished on this version with no screws found near the dock connector, suggesting that this is a near finished product. However, in the photos and video, the phone appears to be running some kind of diagnostic firmware and doesn’t look like it responds to presses on the home button. In the teardown images, what looks like a processor with Apple branding can also bee seen.

This new information is set against the sad backdrop of yet another suicide at Hon Hai Group in China where Apple’s iPhones are manufactured. This is the sixth death at Hon Hai this year and follows Hon Hai’s suspension of a member of its security team after a worker killed himself when an iPhone prototype was lost.

After Jason Chen, Gizmodo’s editor, had his home raided by police and his computers and other items taken as part of an ongoing investigation, this Vietnamese poster is playing a risky game. It also brings into question whether or not the “found it in a bar” story from Gizmodo (and its mystery iPhone seller) is likely to hold up now that two iPhone 4G models have surfaced.

Either people are being extremely careless with these valuable prototypes and two have been “lost” by Apple employees in the US or a more serious crime has been committed. This might also explain the shock and awe of the raid on Jason Chen’s house should the police have reason to believe that the Gizmodo iPhone was part of a wider theft.

Either way, our advice to the Vietnamese man in the video above – don’t include your face in footage of you holding a potentially stolen product, it never ends well.

[ via Mac Rumors ]

[ Has Apple Lost Another 4G iPhone? More Photos And Video is a post from 148Apps ]


Arctic C2 – Review

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Arctic C2 – Review is a post from: Best Iphone Apps Review Website

Arctic C2Every so often, we do a few hardware reviews.  This is one of a series of reviews for the Arctic Cooling brand of products.  For more information about the company or its products, go to Arctic-Cooling.com.

The Arctic C2 is a great charger for any frequent traveller who uses an iPhone, iPod touch, PDA or smartphone.  The best part is that if the person owned one of each, he or she could charge all four at the same time.

The adapter automatically compensates for whichever country it is being used.  There is no need to flick an extra switch to change the voltage as the unit knows based on whichever AC adapter is connected.  The list of possible countries of use include North and South America, Europe, UK, Middle East, Africa, China, Japan and Australia.

Arctic C2The charger comes in a vacuum-sealed package (unlike the Arctic Sound earphones) and was very frustrating to open.  However, at least one can comfort themselves in knowing that if they order an Arctic C2, it’s not likely to get damaged in shipping.  It’s sealed up tight!

When items are plugged into the charger, a blue light appears on the side to let the person using it know that devices are charging.  It’s not an overwhelming feature but it’s nice to know that it is there.  As someone who owns many devices that charge via a USB port (and the feature is becoming so common nowadays there should be USB ports in the walls of new construction), this device is a big timesaver and well worth the $26.55 price (17 euros).

Arctic C2The unit is surprisingly lightweight to the point where it’s a concern that the charger might be stolen while in transit and go unnoticed for a time.  However, for most, lightness of weight is a good feature.  The different types of country adapters snap on to the back easily and is very intuitive to figure out.  The entire charger is well-designed and intuitve.

The only downside to the set is the lack of case to contain all the pieces.  Speaking for myself, it’s easy to lose one of the adapters when they’re shipped loose as they are.  On the other hand, buying a separate carry bag isn’t that expensive.

I would recommend the Arctic C2 to anybody who needs a durable and lightweight USB AC adapter for travel, or just as a place to charge all those USB devices.


Arctic Sound E352

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Arctic Sound E352 is a post from: Best Iphone Apps Review Website

Arctic Sound E352This is one of a series of reviews for the Arctic Cooling brand of products.  For more information about the company or its products, go to Arctic-Cooling.com

At $69.95. the Arctic Sound E352 is the most expensive of Arctic Cooling’s "300" line of high-end earbuds.  It even rivals the $79.99 cost of the Apple in-ear buds available at the Apple Store.  Even worse, unlike the E351 or the E361, this pair doesn’t even come with a microphone or computer adapter.  Plus, it only comes in one color.  So why buy it?

Arctic Sound E352Simply put, for this particular set of earphones, sound quality is everything.  If you are a music aficiando and spend your day listening to music on your iPod touch or iPhone where you can hear every subtle rhythm, beat and hum of the music, then Apple pre-packaged set of earbuds may be inadequate.

What likely drives up the price of this set is the use of wooden paneling at the back of the ear buds.  This allows for the sound to have a unique reverberation within the ear. 

As an example of this, when I tested them against music with a complicated score (such as classical music which contains woods, strings, percussion, etc), I found that I was able to hear certain aspects of the song that didn’t come across when I used the standard Apple headphones, either a hidden bit of percussion or a background harmony.  Music definitely sounds better with these headphones.

As with other earbuds in the line, the E352 comes with three sets of ear caps sized small, medium and large.  I had to use the large earcaps but when I lent them to my significant other, she was able to use the small ones.  An documented bonus of the Arctic Cooling earbud line is that they’re good for sharing.

Arctic Sound E352They also come with the same attractive and compact carrying case that every other high-end headphone set in the Arctic Sound line comes with.  Simply place the ear buds in the center and wrap the cord around the perimeter.

If sound quality is king in terms of how you judge your earphones, then the E352 is the best choice for you.  While it doesn’t come with extras such as a microphone or volume control on the unit, it is better designed and possesses far superior sound quality than the Apple in-ear buds and is just slightly more affordable.


RedEye Remote ~ Combines Wifi & IR to Control Your TV

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RedEye Remote ~ Combines Wifi & IR to Control Your TV is a post from: Best Iphone Apps Review Website

Over the past couple of months we’ve seen a huge boom in the universal remote adapters for the iPhone. They’re all part of the quest to make the iPhone the one ultimate device to control everything. After all you can already control your lights, garage, start cars, or for those who caught my Plant-Mate post, you may even be able to water your garden with it. Currently most of the infrared transmitters out there are coming as either dongles or parts of iPhone cases as can be seen with FLPR or PowerA products. Think Flood’s RedEye Remote is a little different though as it’s a stand alone dock which transmits the signal instead. Does this make it better though?

redeye-environment-thumb

Well that really depends on the situations you’re planning on using your new “universal control” in. First let’s take a look at the hardware itself and how it works. You wouldn’t think it’s anything too special just by looking at it, simply a Apple Universal dock made out of clear blue plastic instead of white with LED’s glowing on the inside. This $188 plastic dock sports a whole lot more than just a charging port though. The 6 glowing LED’s are actually IR transmitters (and receivers) strategically placed and aimed to allow a signal to be beamed in almost every direction of a room at the same time. This is important obviously as it allows different items throughout a room to be controlled by the same dock without a need to reposition it. These signal bursts are sent via the Wifi card built directly into the dock itself which, by default, creates its own wireless network or it can also be set to easily join a preexisting network instead. Joining a current network is the recommended option as it allows for extended range and usability of the internet on your phone at the same time plus increases overall system performance.

The use of Wifi is really where the bulk of the differences of this device stem from when comparing it to other IR options. One advantage is the ability to use the remote without being in a direct line of site of your device. This would be helpful for example if you’re in an adjoining room to a TV which is too loud to hear you company. Instead of leaving your guests to find a remote and turn down the volume it could quickly be done without ever breaking conversation. The Wifi also allows more then one iDevice to control your systems at once, while this could start controller wars in some homes, the more diplomatic ones could find many advantages to it. I did have some concerns about latency with the transmission from Wifi to IR but it was relatively minimal and keeping the remote sound clicks option on helped with keeping it intuitive. Signal drop off was also negligible, especially when tested on stronger networks. Additionally the dock on the top comes with all of the standard dock inserts so that any Apple iDevice can charge on it making the RedEye hardware more than acceptable.

activity-screenThe software, aka the RedEye Remote app, on the other hand could still use some work. It’s not that the app is bad exactly, in fact it’s quite feature rich with the ability to make Macros, custom remote layouts, and personalized buttons, more on these in a moment. The overwhelming feeling I got though was unintuitive. Being a stereotypical male I started my testing by tearing open the box and completely bypassing the instructions. I know this is a bit reckless and pigheaded but I review and work with tech products for a living, I rarely need instructions to get something working. I admit I often have to go back and read them in order to learn all of the features but to simply get it running is usually a boom, boom, pow, process. For the RedEye though it wasn’t until I went back and actually watched the tutorial video online that I truly had a firm grasp on setup and use of the device.

Once I got over that hurdle though things went swimmingly. I mentioned before that you’re able to make your own Macros which with one push of a button can switch your TV input, adjust your receiver volume, and turn on your DVD player so you can watch a movie. This is pretty cool stuff plus you can create your own custom controller layouts with different size buttons which can even be set as TV favorites for taking you to your favorite channel. Every once in a while the macros, called activities in the app, would get confused and think my TV was off instead of on. I was able to advance a couple of menus to manually override it and get it back on track but it was a little annoying. The remote layouts can be a little tricky at first also, I read somewhere a suggestion for ThinkFlood to create a desktop app to help designing layouts which I think would be a great idea. Fortunately all of the remote setups are actually stored in the device and not the app itself which means any iPod or iPhone that connects to it will instantly have all of the same layouts. A cool feature, although not very useful, is the added gesture control the developers included. It’s an interesting idea but the truth is I kept accidentally flipping channels when I put the phone down or my hand would end up getting tired from flicking it to the right while trying to turn the volume up a couple of notches.

Fortunately the biggest flaws, which aren’t enough to keep me from recommending it, are with the software meaning it could end up being updated at any point to make it better. ThinkFlood has already committed to updating it for at least adding to it’s already extensive IR remote database. I should also mention that if your remote isn’t in the database theres no need to worry, there is actually a learn buttons feature with the product as well that you can teach your RedEye how to mimic the unsupported remote.

redeye-miniAs I alluded to at the beginning of this review, is this the universal remote solution for you? Well it depends, the remote dongle accessories out there are cool but they’re something you always have to carry with you to use everywhere. Sure you could easily pick it up and move it to another room but that also means you could easily loose it or leave it upstairs, that’d be annoying.

The other design has been to integrate it with a case, which is great except what happens if a different size iPhone comes out, or if you switch to an iPod Touch? So the best solution really depends on your situation, however, ThinkFlood has recognized the need to be portable too. Coming out this spring is the RedEye Mini which is a dongle that connects through your headphone port and will only run $50. I’m not exactly sure how it will work since remote data is stored on the RedEye itself, but I’m hoping that there is a way to sync the two together. This would give you the best of both worlds without a need to recreate the same remote layouts with 2 devices and for less than $240 it’s still a bargain compared to a Logitech Harmony.

One more note for the ultra creative and handy folks out there, I came across this video a few days ago and was amazed. Hopefully a guy controlling his car with his iPhone will give you some inspiration for other things you could do with a great device like this.

Developer: ThinkFlood
Price: $188.00
Model Reviewed: RedEye

Rating: 4 out of 5 stars

Pros:
-Runs on Wifi
-Doesn’t Require Repositioning
-Universal Dock for Charging
-Supports Multiple iPhones at Once

Cons:
-Only Used in One Room
-App Not Intuitive
-Chance of Wifi Latency

[ RedEye Remote ~ Combines Wifi & IR to Control Your TV is a post from 148Apps ]


Plant-Mate Gives Green Thumb to Everyone

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Plant-Mate Gives Green Thumb to Everyone is a post from: Best Iphone Apps Review Website

plantmate02
I love plants, I really do, I love trees, grass, heck at this point I’d even take a big clump of weeds, but living here in Phoenix means the closest I’ll get to green vegetation will be the salad I have for lunch. Sure some people manage to grow grass or even trees down here but you’re talking to a guy who managed to kill a cactus last summer. Seriously, somehow while living in the middle of the desert I managed to kill a cactus. Don’t ask me how, they don’t even need water to survive, or so I thought…my bad. Fortunately for me, and mother nature, Yanko Design has come out with a new concept for monitoring a garden called the Plant-Mate. This is still a concept design but the way it would work is by strategically sticking Plant-Mates into the ground around your garden and the solar powered device would then notify you via push alerts of both the nutrient and moisture conditions of the soil along with the sun exposure and outside temperature the plants are experiencing. The accompanying iPhone app has a custom map of your yard with each transponder alerting you independently. Hopefully if this ever goes to mass production they’ll find a way to integrate control of your in-ground sprinkler system but we’ll have to wait and see.