Since my visit to CES 2013, a quest for a backup portable iPhone charger began. Running around the world’s largest trade show peddling for power was pretty ugly. New Trent was kind enough to send one over for review and it fitted the bill for my charging woes. A simple, travel size device, the iTorch IMP52D provided a full charge in just under 2 hours for my iPhone 5… Read More
Late last year we covered an interesting little iPhone accessory called the ChargeCard. It was just a Kickstarter project at the time, but we were really intrigued by the credit card-sized USB cable that’s capable of feeding power to your iPhone.
Apparently others were too, because it blew past its funding goal to become a real product. And now that it’s shipping, the ChargeCard team was nice enough to send me one to check out. Oh, and they sent me something for iDB readers too… Read More
Apple is probably looking to add compatibility with high-speed USB 3.0 interconnect to its new Lightning connector. The tiny Lightning I/O debuted on the iPhone 5 in September 2012 as a replacement for Apple’s decade-old 30-pin Dock connector. The controversial move has introduced incompatibilities with legacy accessories that now require an additional $29 or $39 adapter from Apple, even earning a funny Joy of Tech treatment… Read More
Just as Scosche launched its new wall and car Lightning chargers earlier this morning (in addition to the world’s first official retractable Lightning-to-USB cable), Apple has made some tweaks to some of its own accessories.
Surprisingly enough, the new and shorter 0.5-meter Lightning to USB cable costs the same nineteen bucks as Apple’s 1-meter Lightning to USB cable, making the purchase of the latter a no-brainer. The shorter Lightning cable arrives just as Apple last month unveiled the new $29 0.5-meter Thunderbolt cable. Also new: a tweaked In-Ear Headphones… Read More
One of the features I’ve missed from the classic iPods is the ability to plug the devices into a computer in order to directly access their hard drives or flash memory. When I was in school, I didn’t carry a USB key around with me because I always had my iPod and everyone had the cables handy. While there is software that can transfer files between an iPhone and a PC, we’re generally not permitted to install programs on shared computers.
One solution is roqyUSB, a jailbreak utility that allows users to create virtual hard disks which can be accessed by USB. This isn’t the first virtual USB drive we’ve seen for jailbroken devices, but it is the first we’ve seen in a default repository… Read More
Lightning-flavored accessories were fairly scarce in the first few months following Apple’s September iPhone 5 launch. But over the past few weeks, we’ve started seeing more of them surface.
The latest batch of supplements comes from Griffin. The third-party manufacturer announced yesterday that it would be launching a handful of new Lightning-to-USB cables next week… Read More
Apple is expected in early November to lay down the law to its developers on producing Lightning connectors. Among the Apple edicts: Lightning pins will be strictly controlled by the iPhone maker, which will provide them to “approved [developers] with production quantities of the pin once their product is determined to have met its standards and specifications,” according to TechCrunch.
As for potential knock-offs, the blog cites a source who warns lawsuits and import confiscations could be in their future. Without providing details, the source described as being “close to the program,” suggests the Cupertino, Calif. company will provide “additional security against low-quality copies” of the new iDevice connector… Read More
Apple apparently has gone to great length and expense to ensure consumers purchase only its version of the Lightning connector. The connector, which debuted with the iPhone 5, includes a chip which serves to prevent third-party alternatives, according to a report.
The authentication chip is located between the cable’s V+ contact and power pin, according to Double Helix Cables, which took the new cable apart, sharing its results with AppleInsider. Because the chip appears only in Apple’s Lightening cable, third-party alternatives offered by places like Alibaba.com won’t work, the company claims… Read More
We’re just weeks away from Apple’s next-gen iPhone event, and the leaked parts just keep on coming. This time it’s a wall charger, USB cable and a case — all of which appear to be made for the handset and its rumored smaller dock connector.
For the first time since its inception, Apple is widely expected to change the dock connector on its iPhone this fall. Instead of the usual 30-pin setup, it’s said to be utilizing a smaller, 8-pin connector that we’ll also see in future iOS products… Read More
Over the past few weeks, we’ve seen an increase in iPhone 5 part leaks — specifically the dock connector/headphone jack assembly. The components have echoed previous reports that the next-gen iPhone would have a smaller dock connector.
Adding to the evidence is a new photo of a USB charging/sync cable, which popped up online this afternoon. With its 8-9 pin end matching up with the previous parts we’ve seen, it’s believed the cable belongs to Apple’s new smartphone…. Read More
This is pretty cool: inventors Noah Dentzel and Adam Miller have finally come up with a solution to the problem of having to lug around a spare iPhone cable.
The ChargeCard works just like your average 30-pin USB cable — it will charge your device and transfer data — but it’s compact enough to fit in your wallet… Read More
Say what you will, but all day long performance is a pipe dream with today’s power-hungry iOS devices. Because these are mini computers, iOS devices require lots of juice to run. Unfortunately, space constraints and today’s battery technology just can’t keep up with the realities of mobile computing (yet).
Folks tackle the problem with battery packs, but that’s just another item to lug around while out and about. And guess what, a battery pack is one item that routinely gets forgotten in my camping preparations. But I never forget a camp stove.
Enter BioLite’s CampStove, an awesome new ‘accessory’, basically a special camp stove which lets you burn stuff – be it wood and pine or twigs and leaves or other bio mass – to convert heat to energy via its built-in thermoelectric generator, so you can charge your iPhone, iPod touch or iPad. The campfire will never be the same. A cool promo video follows right below… Read More
Simply, I hate tangled cables. The most worthless item in your bag is a knotted-up bunch of charging cables and, if you’ve really got a bird’s nest, it can take forever to untangle. Thankfully, everyone at AViiQ shares the common tangled-disaster-pain that ravages the world of technology and decided to do something about it. Ready Clips are here as the antidote and they fit quite nicely in a travel bag… Read More
PadSync from ecamm is yet another way to access the documents folders of apps on your iDevice. The interface is very similar to iTunes File Sharing, located in the device view of a synced device. The main advantage is that you don’t need iTunes running to use it.
Maybe not enough apps you use have added iCloud support yet. Or perhaps you want to be able to easily drag and drop movie files into your movie app from your computer without performing a full iTunes sync. The rest of you might need an easy way to drag a document from your iPhone or iPad to your desktop. Let’s take a look at how PadSync can help… Read More
It’s patent time again, and the latest discovery by those eagle-eyed patent-watchers at AppleInsider have spied a new application that hints at an improved method of charging and syncing our mobile devices.
The patent, originally filed all the way back in 2001 and recently improved upon, suggests Apple’s boffins are keen to reduce the number cables and connectors we use for our mobile devices – that’s Macbooks, iPhones, iPads and iPod touches. The old-fashioned click wheel iPods should also be able to get in on the action… Read More
Every week, we select a few apps that catch our eye. These apps can be from the App Store, web apps, or jailbreak apps.
This week, we have three awesome App Store apps. Hope you enjoy this week’s picks! Read More
Apple recently introduced a new connection technology dubbed “Thunderbolt.” In Apple’s MacBook Pro refresh, the Thunderbolt port has been added as a new wired connection architecture that Apple hopes will unify its connection technologies.
The key feature for the Thunderbolt architecture is speed. Thunderbolt promises to be lighting fast (pardon the pun) and offer incredible speeds for data transfers. The need for Thunderbolt is evident for the desktop, but it’s not a stretch to imagine that Thunderbolt could eventually make its way to iOS devices.
We Apple users are picky about our aesthetics. Some of us try to pretend that we aren’t, but we are. Things like app icons matter to us. Apple doesn’t make it easy to customize your iPhone’s look on a system mod level, but luckily there are still jailbreak-free hacks out there to taunt Apple’s need for aesthetic control.
I’m going to walk you through how to manually change app icons on your iPhone without jailbreaking. There are multiple reasons you may want to change an app icon; you think the developer’s icon is ugly, you want a retina display-compatible icon, or you just want to mess with your friend while he’s away from his phone. Here’s how you do it:
PhoneDisk is an app available for both Mac and Windows that transforms your iPhone into an external hard drive. Using PhoneDisk, you can preview, open, edit and save images, documents and more directly on your iPhone.
Best of all, this applications is available for free until December 1st 2010… Read More
Do you sometimes feel like 32GB of memory on your iPhone is not enough? You wish there was a way to add some additional GB to it? If so then rejoice because Air Stash will do that just for you.
Air Stash is some sort of USB stick mixed up with a SD card reader which communicates with your iPhone over wifi, allowing to share documents between the iPhone and the SD card. Check out this video to see it in action… Read More
