Another day, another speaker dock. We initially dismissed Gear4‘s latest accessory at Google I/O 2012 until we noticed that the attached Nexus 7 was playing audio digitally via the USB port instead of simply through the headphone jack (or wirelessly over Bluetooth for that matter). It turns out that Jelly Bean supports USB audio, a software feature that’s bound to spearhead a whole new generation of accessories for Android devices. Gear4’s universal speaker dock with alarm clock radio is the first to handle USB audio. While the sound for any app can be routed to the USB port in Jelly Bean, the functionality is missing from older versions of Android. Thankfully, Gear4 includes an app with its accessory that can be used to set alarms, sync time, tune the radio and play media over the USB port on legacy versions of Android. Want to know more? You’ll find our gallery below and our hands-on video after the break.
The must-have smartphone accessory of tomorrow might just be an unbreakable touchscreen epaper tablet, saving your eyes from squinting at a mobile display. Plastic Logic revealed its work-in-progress slate to us today, as SlashGear browsed the goodies in the company’s UK R&D center, confirming that talks with several manufacturers and carriers are ongoing to bring the companion device to market. Potentially bundled with your next smartphone could be a 10.7-inch super-light touchscreen pane for easier viewing of webpages, documents and more.
The concept behind the idea is straightforward: smartphones are incredibly capable, powerful devices, but in being portable they also demand a huge compromise on screen size. Even the Galaxy Note, with its 5.3-inch display, is considerably smaller than the average tablet, and that can make reading news, ebooks, presentations and other content frustratingly uncomfortable.
Plastic Logic’s idea is an ultra-thin companion device using one of its plastic-transistor based displays, paired with a wireless technology such as WiFi or Bluetooth, a battery, touchscreen, and a smartphone app – currently a hastily-cobbled-together Android app – that exchanges data between the two devices. With that app, users could squirt over emailed documents or webpages to the epaper, paging through using the onscreen controls. Alternatively, you can do the same thing with photos taken with the phone, which could be useful for those with partial-sight wanting to enlarge pages.
Although Plastic Logic bills its displays as flexible, in this context the company says its potential carrier partners are more focused on a rugged device: something that can be dropped into a bag or briefcase without concerns that the screen might crack. Rather than the Heath Robinson prototype, the final design is envisaged as a slim frame with a carry-handle on the top that would contain the electronics, battery and other components.
Battery life could be a real advantage over existing tablets. Since the Plastic Logic display only uses power when it changes the on-screen image, it’s far more frugal than a traditional LCD or OLED. That could mean 2-4 weeks use on a single charge, potentially, though final runtimes haven’t been confirmed.
In practice, use is a simple affair. The rudimentary app allows you to pick a file and share it to the display – in this prototype’s case, using a WiFi connection – and, after a couple of seconds, it blinks into life. Photos are shown full-screen and, while it’s currently monochrome and obviously lower resolution than a new iPad, it’s still easier to look at than a compact phone screen. As for multi-page documents, like PDFs, they can be paged through with a few stabs at the on-screen buttons, though there’s the usual blink-refresh we’re familiar with from other e-paper products. That should change if Plastic Logic uses one of its video-capable panels, which has a higher refresh rate.
The deciding factor is likely to be price: Plastic Logic and its partners would need to bring this in significantly lower than regular tablets, which could be a challenge given the $199 Nexus 7 announced yesterday. The company wouldn’t give us an estimate – it depends on who supplies the rest of the components and builds the slate, as well as how carriers decide to market it – but the idea of it being supplied as a freebie with a new phone was vaunted.
There’s certainly no shortage of speakers and docking systems for the iPad and other Apple gadgets. That doesn’t mean users are always looking for the next cool and interesting speaker system for their iPad though. A company called Carbon Audio has launched a new line of speakers designed to pair with the iPad and more called Zooka.
The Zooka isn’t a docking station, as you might expect, it’s a long speaker bar with a slot that you can slip your iPad into. The Zooka is available in a rainbow of colors, including black, blue, dark gray, green, orange, pink, purple, red, and teal. The system will be officially launched in August, and you can pre-order now if one of the colors strikes your fancy.
The Zooka promises concert hall audio for movies, music, games, and more. The slot on the Zooka is designed to attach a speaker to your iPad, but it uses Bluetooth to stream the audio and has a 30-foot range. The device also has an integrated microphone to turn it into a speaker phone for use with Skype or other VoIP applications. The slot also secures the speaker bar to the top of a MacBook. The retail price for the Zooka is $99.95.
Accessories, iOS has them. Not many devices can boast the same rich and dazzling array of add-ons that the iPhone or iPad enjoy — from keyboards to docks, arcade cabinets to battery packs. Today’s offering? A mobile mixer. The iRig MIX from IK Multimedia, to be precise. It’s essentially a mini DJ tool, designed to work with such iGadgets, and brought to you by the same serial audio-accessorizers behind the iRig MIC Cast and AmpliTube. If you think you’ve seen this fella before, then you likely have, as this got its first glimpse of sunlight back at CES. Now it’s here for real, auditioning for your affections as if it were on “American Idol.”
While it’s easy to dismiss some of the more ambitious accessories as as trying to push the limits of iPad / iPhone functionality to the extreme, it’s also worth remembering that accessory X isn’t always about replacing object Y. No one ever bought a USB webcam thinking it’d turn them into Spielberg, now did they? But, they might have gotten one thinking it would give their PC some skills it never had before. So it’s with this short, preemptive missive in mind that we turn on the iRig MIX, plug in and rock out. Hopefully.
I used my iPad last night in bed and woke up with a pretty stiff neck. In fact, it was stiff for the most part of my day, which gave way to a rotten mood and a ruined day. I get similar aches from using the tablet when I’m sitting down or in a reclined position. So when I saw the Tablift up on Kickstarter, well, let me just say that I thought it was a godsend.
Tablift is an accessory that will make it easy for anyone with an iPad to use it while they’re lying down in bed or chilling on their couches. It’s basically a sturdy stand with super long, bendy legs that can be adjusted independently, so you can use it in virtually any position.
At first glance, the Tablift looks like a bulky accessory, but the cool thing is that it folds down entirely, so you can stow it away and take it with you wherever you might use your iPad.
If you’re interested, you can head on over to Tablift’s Kickstarter page to learn all about it and maybe even back the project. A minimum pledge of $60(USD) will get you one Tablift if the project’s target of $78,000 is raised by July 12th.
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Tablift is an accessory that will make it easy for anyone with an iPad to use it while they’re lying down in bed or chilling on their couches. It’s basically a sturdy stand with super long, bendy legs that can be adjusted independently, so you can use it in virtually any position.
