GADGET REVIEWS Just another GADGET NEWS

IPADock. Its name may sound more like a place to keep your iRacehorses, but the curiously-capitalized accessory is probably the most useful desktop gadget ever. Plug it into a computer and you can charge and sync a pair of iPads, four iPhones, and various combinations thereof. A universal dock-port can be fitted with the adapter from any iPod, from Nano to Touch, and then things start to get even handier.

Stacked up around the back are slots for SD-cards, MemorySticks, CompactFlash cards and a three-port USB-hub. In short, pretty much anything you might want to dock on your desktop will be served by this surprisingly good-looking and compact device.

The price? $70, although you’ll be ordering it from Japan if you want one.

iPADock product page [Photofast via Cult of Mac's John Brownlee. Thanks, Pedro!]

Source:wired.com

Posted under Gadget Reviews

Wired.com New York Bureau Chief John C Abell and I are engaged in the hunt for the perfect iPad stand. Mr. Abell, you may remember, got all creative and hacked together a shallow-angled typing stand from a pair of Home Depot door stops. I don’t type enough on the iPad to need that, so I currently use a perspex business card stand.

The Wooden Desktop Cradle for iPad looks like it may serve both our needs. The block of heavy wood is a simple slab with a pair of slots routed out. One slot will hold the iPad at 45 for typing and desktop use, the other at 18 for use as a photo-frame or movie-stand.

I’d be a little worried using such a thing when typing: The iPad is held along a single edge, and tapping away on the keyboard would turn it into a lever with startling glass-bending powers. For watching movies, though, it looks near-ideal. I have recently repurposed a Kradle Kindle stand, a very similar design (one which I called the Worlds Ugliest Accessory) as the perfect in-bed iPad holder. Its large footprint makes it stable on a soft mattress, and like this wooden cradle it is flat, making storage and transport easy. Better still, flip it over and you have yourself an instant picnic chopping board. $18, available now.

Wooden Desktop Cradle for iPad [USB Fever]

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Source:wired.com

Posted under Gadget Reviews

Meet the Sniper Stand, a tiny, adhesive-backed plastic carbuncle which sticks to you iPhone (or any other small flat-backed device) and lets you use a credit-card as an impromptu kick-stand.

The lump remains attached, limpet-like, to the rear of the iPhone and has two perpendicular slots crossing its ABS dome. You slide any convenient plastic card into one of these and set the whole assembly down, your phone now tilted back ready for some movie-watching or, more disturbingly, some hands-free FaceTime.

The Sniper Stand comes from Lancaster, Pennsylvania-based bartender (and avid Gadget Lab reader) Arthur Larsen, who tipped us off to his patent-pending design. And before you make the obvious complaint about the permanent plastic pimple attached to the back of the iPhone, let Arthur have his say:

It’s actually kinda nice having a bump on the back of your phone; the bump holds up the phone just a tiny bit of an angle for viewing, that tiny bit makes it much easier to grab your phone (especially a really thin iPhone 4), holding it in your hand the bump of the Sniper Stand makes a nice spot to place your finger and balance the phone in your hand with less fear of it sliding out of your hand, etc… What do you think?

Well, Arthur, I think it’s pretty cool.

Sniper Stand – Convenient Smartphone Support [Sniper Stand. Thanks, Arthur]

Source:wired.com

Posted under Gadget Reviews