Hasta La Gadget!

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]

See Also:

• Simplest and Best? The MoviePeg iPhone Stand
• The One Minute Hack: DIY Suction-Cup iPhone Stand
• DIY iPhone Dock Made From Dead CDs
• Wired Bureau Chief Builds iPad Stand from $6 Doorstops
• The $5 iPad Dock
• Quirky's iPad Case With Two-Way Kick-Stand

How do you carry your iPad? Do you have a big bag with a purpose-made pad-pocket? Do you go commando, tossing the iPad into your purse to fend for itself against the keys and cables therein? Or do you, like me until a couple days ago, use a padded envelope that came free with some other parcel in the mail?

I use these Jiffy Bags for all my computer carrying needs, but for the iPad they don’t work well. First, the bubbles leave a honeycomb pattern on the screen, which combines with my left-over finger-grease to make a distracting design. Second, it offers no protection to the screen, and sliding in a piece of cardboard is less than ideal.

So I bought a case. The €40 PadCover from Dicota, a German company that usually besmirches its bags with names like the “LadySuccess”. Seriously.

The PadCover is a simple envelope-like sleeve, fashioned from a herringbone-patterned wool and acrylic mix. This somewhat conservative design is contrasted by a brightly colored pink or blue nylon lining. Running around and between is gray leather edging.

Why is it better than a shipping envelope? First, one side is reinforced, making it stiff enough to protect the iPad’s screen from bumps and sharp knocks. The other side is thick, but soft, so it curves with the iPad’s aluminum back.

Getting the iPad in and out is also easy, thanks to an ingenious tab. A thick strip (pink, in my case) is fixed to one interior wall and runs under the iPad, back up the other side and out through a leather-trimmed slot. Pulling on the exposed tab lifts the iPad up so the top third protrudes, ready to be yanked out of the rather tight-fitting case.

Should you prefer to go old-school and tug it out manually, there is a triangular cutout in the leather strip on the top edge which will let you get a grip. It is on the screen-side, so it also exposes the home-button, which seems like a pretty bad idea.

I carry a man-bag at all times, and the PadCover is slipped inside whenever I leave the house. I really like the pull-to-eject tab as it lets me pull the iPad out for use without removing the case first. This makes it a lot more likely I’ll grab the iPad to look something up quickly. It also makes it easy to slide back in.

The obvious disadvantage is that the case is always open, will let in dust and won’t protect the end of the iPad. For that you’ll need a folio-style case, or something with a zipper or flap. The trade-off there is speed of access.

Do I recommend it? Sure. It does one thing, and does it well. If you’re looking for a case that will tilt the iPad for typing, or double as a stand, or anything else, then look elsewhere. For a tough, stylish (if you like blue or pink) single-purpose case, at a not-too-expensive price, the PadCover does the job great.

PadCover [Dicota]

The Pogoplug got an update this week that will let you, with an e-mail from any computer or mobile device, print a document on any printer you have connected with a Pogoplug.

The Pogoplug’s simplest use is for accessing your stored files over the Internet. The $130 device plugs into your Ethernet connection, and has a USB port – plug in a hard drive or a USB drive, and the Pogoplug puts all those files on the web for you to access via the Pogoplug site or the company’s iPhone and Android apps. You can also e-mail files to your Pogoplug – if you’ve got a file on another computer, you can e-mail it straight onto your hard drive instead of attempting any of the other, universally obnoxious options for getting a file to your computer.

The latest Pogoplug update lets you connect a printer to the Pogoplug, instead of just a hard drive. That means that any printer with a USB port can get connected to the internet, and you can print something just by e-mailing it. Need to print from your iPad or cell phone? Now you can.

HP announced the same feature a few weeks ago, but you’ll need to buy a new HP printer in order to print by e-mail. Pogoplug supports all HP printers and all Epson printers made since 2005 right out of the box, with more likely coming.

More and more companies are likely to adopt this same kind of feature, and printing’s going to get a lot more convenient, no matter your location or device of choice. As the world goes mobile, printing’s catching up, one funny-looking pink device at a time.

Sometime my email brings me nothing but endless useless PR pitches, offers to talk with an “expert” on iPad cases or just the usual offers to help export $6 million worth of Viagra from Nigeria. I live through these for the occasional Perfect Storm, a product that makes my gadget-sense tingle, something which not only ticks, but tickles every box on my emotional gee-gaw checklist. Today is such a day.

The product is, obviously, a power-strip. It is also from Quirky, the community-driven product makers that seem to hit almost as many product home-runs as Apple. Third, it is a product that I actually need. So much so that I ordered one before writing a word of this post.

Pivot Power is a flexible power-strip, its jointed sections rotating around one another to accommodate six plugs. Sure, you may have a 6-plug strip already, but how many gadgets can you actually plug in? My 8-plug strip is full with just five items, most of which cover up an adjacent socket. The caterpillar-like Pivot-Power lets you twist to fit and therefore fill every electrical orifice.

The strip is on pre-sale for $23, rising to $25. When all 960 orders have been taken, the production lines will roll and the strips will be cranked out, and a big chunk of the profits will go to the main designers and “influencers” of the Quirky community. I’m number 405 in line.

Pivot Power [Quirky. Thanks, Tiffany!]

See Also:

• Quirky Switch, A customizable Multi-Tool
• USB Cable Organizers Marred by Childish Design
• Quirky's iPad Case With Two-Way Kick-Stand

Those waiting on the popular and good-looking Dodo iPad case, the high school cheerleader of tablet-carriers, might instead consider the equally pretty The Case from Pad & Quill. Similar to the Dodo case in design, it is clearly inspired by the Moleskine notebook, with its faux-leather cover. Then things start to get different.

The Dodo has a bamboo frame inside the card cover, and The Case is fashioned from Baltic Birch, routed to within 1/20,000th inch of its life and then stuck with rubber bumpers to keep the iPad snug inside. It also has cutouts around the edge so you can reach the iPad’s buttons and holes.

The Case also ditches the Moleskine elastic band in favor of a press-stud closing strap like that found on a Filofax, and adds an ingenious way to get the iPad back out. Instead of just holding the case upside-down and shaking, a red-ribbon book-marker lies underneath the iPad. Pulling on the exposed end lifts the tablet from its case.

You can also buy a smaller version for your iPhone from the Milwaukee-based company. This will cost you $40, and the iPad version is $55, $5 more than the Dodo, and will rise to $65 sometime in the future. Because they are hand-made, these cases too have a waiting period, although it is just 2-3 weeks compared to the 4-6 weeks for the Dodo. That could all change now The Case has made its way into these pages.

The Case [Pad & Quill. Thanks, Brian!]

See Also:

• Moleskine-Shaped, Bamboo iPad Case
• Kindle Case from Moleskine Mixes Paper and E-Ink
• Leather Cases Turn iPad into a Book