Hasta La Gadget!

Imagine, if you will, the world of the overprivileged, the domain of that elite group of people who long ago bought everything they wanted or needed, people whose only way to get rid of their pile of cash is to fritter it away, Brewster’s Millions-style, on expensive, glittery trash.

For these lucky individuals the price of an object is its most compelling spec, followed closely by novelty. Take the Vertu series of phones, for example, which hover around $10,000 apiece and offer such modern conveniences as GPRS connections, or color screens. Can I interest you in a $200 corkscrew, sir? Are you sure? It is made of woolly mammoth tusk, you know. Ahh, I shall wrap it for you now.

To these people, an iPhone dock cast in glass is the perfect object. The CrystalDock is nothing more than a single blob of lead-crystal glass poured into a mold (”by hand”, of course), polished, fitted with a connector and dropped into a box. The price? An satisfyingly foolish €200, or around $250 $200. There’s even the option to “upgrade” to a more sophisticated model, the €350 ($350) Aurora. This wonderful frippery is “hand-painted with platinum” and when your current-gen iPhone no longer fits, it will make the perfect Clue-style murder weapon to safe-gaurd your inheritance from that cheating wife of yours. Available now, unfortunately.

CrystalDock [Calypso Crystal. Thanks, Ales!]

Over in the Nike forums, the US launch-date for the Nike+ compatible heart rate monitor has slipped out. In a post from user Nike+ Pro 16, we get the following snippet:

Great news! I have a U.S. launch date for the Nike+ compatible heart rate monitor. It will officially launch on June 1, 2010, although it may reach some retail outlets slightly sooner. It will reach Canadian markets in June and will launch internationally in summer 2010, exact date to be determined.

I know you’re going to ask, so I’ll answer preemptively: no, I am not able to discuss price, color, device

The heart-rate monitor will be an add-on for the existing Nike+ pedometer, which talks to your iPad Nano or iPod Touch to track how far you run. The planned monitor is not really a secret. Back in September 2009 when the 5G iPod Nano was launched, the user manual (PDF) contained instructions for pairing the iPod with the device. What about the legitimacy of this rumor? I checked into the posting history of user Nike+ Pro 16 and he or she appears to be either a Nike employee, or at least a dedicated support person. Get ready fitness freaks: just two weeks to go!

Thread: linking a heart rate monitor to iPod [Nike Discussions via Apple Insider]

See Also:

• The Nike Experiment: How the Shoe Giant Unleashed the Power of …
• Nike+ Mashup: Mario Kart Ghost Racers on Real Streets
• Apple And Nike+ Bring Their iPods To The Gym
• Nike+ Hacked to Open Cars From Afar
• Nike+ Coming to All Nike Running Shoes

Picture shows existing Nike+ shoe dongle

I remain resolute in my continued ridicule of the Pogo Stylus for the iPhone. The entire point of the iPhone is that you don’t need to pull out a little metal pencil to tap the screen. You’re supposed to do it with your fingers. Still, if you insist on it, for instance if you have the cute sugar-cube-shaped Square credit-card reader and want to let people sign their names on screen, then this companion case will at least stop you losing the pen.

The case, from Pogo maker Ten One Design, is called the Tango. It is also the “world’s first case specifically made for the Pogo Stylus”, and we’d guess it will also be the last, this being a somewhat niche category. The case is leather on the outside, micro-suede on the inside and flips open to let you quickly doodle on the screen without removing the iPhone 3GS from within. The stylus sits in a clip on the side.

Compared to the stylus itself, which goes for a rather optimistic $15, the case is reasonable at $40, especially as it comes with its own Pogo stick.

Somewhat hypocritically I was shopping online for a Pogo just this morning. A stylus for the iPhone may be dumb, but a stylus to use with iPad drawing and painting apps? Fantastic.

Tango case [Ten One. Thanks, Jenny!]

See Also:

• Pogo Stylus: The Most Useless iPhone Accessory. Ever
• Pogo Stick Turns Mac Touchpads into Graphics Tablets
• Junk
• Pogo iPhone Stylus Bounces Back. Again

Gadget bags and cases are almost uniformly hideous. Made from neoprene, nylon and brightly-colored fabrics, they offer protection at the expense of style. Dressing well and toting a notebook or cellphone inside a standard bag is like turning up to a wedding wearing a tailored suit with a ski-jacket.

The alternatives are usually expensive. These cases, though, from Saddleback Leather, are both reasonably priced and gorgeous. Made from heavy, good-quality leather, they’re guaranteed for 100 years, so they’ll still be with you when your face starts to look like your laptop bag. And the prices? Amazingly, pretty low. The iPad sleeve, seen above with a couple of smaller pouches perched on top, is just $55.

But best of all is the website. There is a page titled “Our Rivals“, which is a list of links to other leather-makers’ sites. The FAQ is probably worth sending off to your Instapaper to read later. Some examples:

How can I get ink off of my leather?

Well, you’re pretty much screwed. One person said that hairspray worked to get their ink out, but there’s something cooler you can do. Take it to a tattoo artist and have him make a sun or cross or something like that with it. It’ll look cool and you’ll have a good story too.

and from the warranty details:

Saddleback Leather products are made to last a lifetime, but the warranty does not cover misuse or abuse such as the following: Like if you take it shark diving in salt water (see video) and a rivet corrodes.

These are the kind of people I like to do business with. All products available now, with international shipping. And if you can’t choose what color you want, there’s even a personality test to help you decide.

Gadget Pouches [Saddleback Leather via Uncrate]

HyperMac, the company that almost single-handedly silenced the handful of people who complained about the MacBook’s lack of a swappable battery, has updated its battery-bricks to juice the iPad.

The HyperMacs are external batteries which can power your MacBook for up to 34 hours via a MagSafe adapter actually clipped from a real Apple power-brick (Apple doesn’t license the design). They also have USB ports to recharge other gadgets, and these have now been upgraded to supply the 10 watts needed by the iPad.

This means that, if you go for the top-end, 4.7-pound, 222 watt-hour HyperMac then you can get a 99 hours of use from an iPad. That’ll cost you $500. For “just” $200, the far more sensible 60 watt-hour version – which weighs in at 0.8-pounds – will give you a total of 34 hours, more than enough for a weekend away.

The HyperMacs are available now, with a wait of a couple of weeks for delivery. With any luck, if you order one today it should turn at the same time as your equally delayed iPad order.

HyperMac batteries [HyperMac via MacWorld]