Hasta La Gadget!

Miniot’s wooden iPad 2 cover mixes old style and new tech

Some said that Apple’s Smart Cover would kill the third-party case market. When I first saw the neat magnetic cover, I thought the opposite — that case-makers would go crazy with cool ways to use the magnets inside the iPad 2. And here’s the first really clever take I have seen: a wooden cover from Dutch company Miniot.

The picture above is awful, so I recommend watching the video. The cover is a thin sheet of cherrywood scored with grooves so that it can roll. On the inside face is a plush, soft layer to cushion the screen, and there are magnets to hold the cover to the iPad’s spine, and also to activate the screen-lock.

The clever part is its hingeless design, making it even more minimal than Apple’s own cover. Magnets are in the edge of the cover itself. To use it as a stand, you first roll (not fold) the cover back, and then swing it around to the iPad’s rear. Thus positioned, it can hold the iPad up for movie-watching, or down almost flat for typing.

Best of all, the case is cheap. At just €50, it is €20 less than Apple’s leather cover. If you’re importing into the U.S, it’s not quite so good, translating to 71 of your U.S dollars. Available, apparently, from today.

Wooden iPad 2 cover [Miniot via Mac Stories]

See Also:

• Smart Cover
• Speck PixelSkin HD Apes Smart Cover Design
• IFixit Smart Cover Teardown: Contains Magnets. Lots of Magnets …
• Hack Puts Smart Cover on Old, Fat iPads

Like an overstuffed sandwich, the Travel Express will let you carry every iPad accessory you own

So you’ve dropped at least $500 on a new iPad 2, and another $40-$70 on a flimsy fridge-magnet to stick to it. What do you do when you realize that your still shiny new investment is completely unprotected, susceptible to scratches on its rear, and catastrophe if you drop it? You go look for a cover to cover your cover, that’s what.

And you may arrive at the door of SF Bags, which will take 69 more of your dollars in exchange for the WaterField iPad Travel Express. It’s a simple, padded ballistic nylon sleeve, with internal pockets for the iPad (1 or 2, with or without fridge-magnet) along with an external keyboard, power brick, cables and other sundries. It’s a lot like the old executive laptop bags in which the suits used to carry their Dells, only cooler.

There is also an optional strap and pair of D-rings so you can sling the whole thing over your shoulder. A big bag with everything in it is kind of missing the point of the iPad, but sometimes you just have to take it all with you. And WaterField’s padded nylon is light and thin, and yet still good at shock absorption (I have tried out WaterField’s civilization-destroying keyboard case and found it to be good).

So there you have it. The second best solution to money that’s burning a hole in your pocket (the first best is — obviously — fireproof pockets). Available now.

iPad Travel Express [WaterField / SF Bags. thanks, Heidi!]

See Also:

• Planet-Killing SuperDrive Case for Optical Disk Holdouts
• Protective Keyboard Case Joined By Trackpad Cover
• Protective Keyboard Cases Signal End of Civilization

Ekocase’s bamboo- and faux-leather iPad case does its best to look like an oversized hipster notebook.

Sustainably-harvested bamboo frame? Check. “Animal-friendly faux-leather cover?” Check. Moleskine-like styling? Triple check.

The Ekocase2 is an iPad and iPad 2 case that should appeal to all of you vegetarian, Earth-loving, iPad-using hipsters.

Like many clever gadget accessories these days, it doesn’t exist yet except in prototype form, but if the creator, Ryan Frazier, gets enough pledges of support on his Kickstarter page, it’ll go into production. It’s got an interesting locking system that uses two bamboo pegs to hold the iPad in place, and will come in a variety of colors, just like your favorite paper notebooks.

Apart from the styling and the materials, I like that the elastic strap can also be used to hang the iPad on the back of a car’s headrest, turning it into a video display screen for entertaining the tykes in the back seat. You can’t do that with a Moleskine.

Gadget Lab’s iPad case and power plug reporter Charlie Sorrel is taking the day off. –Ed.

The Polyply is Andrew Lim’s beautiful custom-built iDevice stand

Oh man, my desk is such a mess. Right now I have my iPad charging, my iPhone syncing, an iPod Nano just sitting there and being annoying, and a stylus, which is plain embarrassing because I swore I would never buy one.

If only I had some kind of pod-tidy to hold them all. Perhaps something with a sleek white acrylic front, and a birch-plywood rear. Something that would stand up on the desk and array all of my iDevices in front of me as if they were pieces in one of those really easy jigsaw puzzles for kids.

Maybe, if I was really wishing hard, I’d ask for something that would fit only a very specific combination of gadgets. Say, the latest iPhone, but a two-generations old Nano and one of those fat, ugly, heavy and slow iPads some of us are still forced to use. Then, if I was to change a single one of those gadgets, my lovely pod-tidy would be rendered immediately useless, too.

What’s that, Yanko Design? You’ve found me just the thing? Look at that! Its the Polyply from Andrew Kim, and it’s not a real product at all, but a beautifully made one-off design to fit Kim’s own iSelection. I just wish I was handy enough to do the same.

Polyply [Minimally Minimal via Yanko]

See Also:

• Wooden iPad Stand Doubles as Kitchen Accessory
• The One Minute Hack: DIY Suction-Cup iPhone Stand
• The (Ugly) DIY Gorillapod

The Flea v2.0 has a clever USB charger, and a battery level indicator

Blackburn Designs’ Flea bike lights look to be some of the most cleverly designed lamps around — and not just because they look like a Transformer’s head.

The Fleas do much that most other removable lights do: They fix onto the bike with velcro straps, they offer a choice of flashing or steady beams, and they use bright LEDs for lots of light without using too much power. The rear lamp runs for up to 12 hours and the front up to five (it puts out 40 lumens). Then things get really clever.

Both lights have a charge indicator, so you always know exactly how much time you have left. Not that this is really a problem, as they recharge via USB, meaning you’ll never have to buy another battery again. Even the charging is clever. The lights come with a USB dongle that plugs into a port or charger, and has a pair of magnetic contacts on top. Just stick the light to these points and it’ll be charged in 90 minutes.

The front and rear lights are both listed at $30, and there’s even a solar charger, which comes in a kit with a spare USB dongle for another $30.

Flea product page [Blackburn Designs via London Cyclist]

See Also:

• Owleye Solar Bike Lights Also Charge via USB
• Hands-On: Spaceship Bike Light Blinds Puny Humans
• Boomer: A Rechargeable USB Bike-Light from Knog
• Hands-On with the Knog Frog Bike Light