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Continue reading Supposed next-gen iPhone cases surface in China

Supposed next-gen iPhone cases surface in China originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 20 May 2010 13:52:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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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

Visa has announced a contactless payment system for the iPhone which allows you to use the phone as a credit card. It works using RFID tech, and is as kludgy as hell.

Called In2Pay, the payment method uses a modified microSD card with a near-field communications (NFC) chip inside. Because the iPhone doesn’t yet sport a microSD slot, the card sits in a case which powers the chip and allows contactless payments, just like those used to pay for toll booths or public transport. You would be able to hold your iPhone up to a compatible reader and make a transaction. It would work even if there were no clerk present, for instance at a vending machine.

The idea of schemes like In2Pay is to free you from carrying a wallet, allowing you to do everything with your cellphone. But this implementation, which requires carrying a cellphone case, is not much different from just taping your credit card to the back of your phone. (Or slipping it into a credit card-holding iPhone cover.)

It also requires a compatible card reader. What, the neighborhood restaurant doesn’t accept contactless payments? Sorry, there are only 100,000 merchants in the U.S. that have NFC payment readers, compared to millions that accept old-style credit cards.

However, it does come direct from Visa, lending a certain weight to the scheme, and when more phones accept the microSD it will be essentially invisible. Add to that the fact that iPhone users tend to be more disposed to trying out new tech and you can easily see that this is a pilot scheme from Visa designed to grow the infrastructure of contactless payments, which have so far failed to meet Visa’s inflated expectations.

In2Pay joins several methods for receiving credit card payments, including Square, a little white cube that slots into the iPhone’s headphone jack and allows you to swipe regular old credit cards. Soon, it seems clear, almost all payments will be made using cellphones, even the ones that involve paying your friend back that dollar he owes you. Just don’t lose that phone.

DeviceFidelity Announces Mobile Contactless Payment Solution for iPhone [Visa via MobileCrunch]

See Also:

• PayPal Fist Bumps Square
• Square Mobile Credit Card System (Beta)
• Swipe Credit Cards With Your iPhone

If you’re like us, one of the first things you wanted to do after getting your iPad was to find a great case for it. Right off the bat, we weren’t really that into Apple’s offering, which is strangely 90’s in its design aesthetic, though it does have a number of decent features if you’re looking for a do-it-all scenario and don’t have strong feelings on looks. For us, however, the goal was finding something that kept a low profile, shielded the slate from unnecessary grime, and made it easier to deal with. Oh, and we wanted it to look like a book. After reviewing the options, we’ve come up with two choices that we think are your best bets for turning your iPad into something a little more familiar, so here’s our quick take on M-Edge’s Trip Jacket, and the stunning, hand-made Dodocase.

Continue reading A tale of two iPad cases: the Dodocase and M-Edge Trip Jacket

A tale of two iPad cases: the Dodocase and M-Edge Trip Jacket originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 03 May 2010 18:23:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Hey, we just got our Hello Rewind laptop sleeve in the mail, and we’re pretty psyched about it. If you’ll recall, Hello Rewind is a startup in New York City dedicated to helping the survivors of sex trafficking learn new skills by running a business turning old T-shirts into laptop sleeves, and all of the proceeds are used to sustain the enterprise and help more survivors. Pretty neat, especially since helping out just requires you to donate a favorite old shirt and $49 — and the sleeve itself is actually quite nice. Be warned, though: it fits pretty snugly around 15-inch MacBook Pros, and it wasn’t even an option for our bruiser 15-inch HP Elitebook, so you might want to get a size up if you’ve got a bigger machine. Of course, that pales in comparison to the bigger problem: what T-shirt are you going to use?

Hello Rewind laptop sleeve hands-on originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 01 May 2010 16:04:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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