Hasta La Gadget!

Comic Reader’s schtick is that it looks like a comic book itself

Boom! Thwack! Comic Reader is yet another, well, comic reader for the iPad and, despite the almost catatonic lack of effort in giving it a name, it is very polished for an early release. It also has one neat–and possibly unique–feature: RSS.

Like every other reader, Comic Reader (henceforth known as CR to avoid confusion) allows you to import CBR, CBZ, ZIP and RAR files of your comic books, and catalog and view them on the iPad.

The catalog view is configurable three ways. There are small and large list views, along with a Series view (which groups series together and shows them with lovely large cover thumbnails), and a customizable “Reading List” view, which lets you gather issues together in arbitrary groups. These work fine, and adding comics is as easy as tapping their titles in a list.

Reading is competent. The page turns can be triggered by swiping or by tapping at the very sides of the screen. These side zones can’t be resized (I’d prefer them a touch bigger) and in order to have the right margin take you to the next page, you’ll need to (oddly) check “Swap Side Buttons” in the preferences. And no, I don’t have the page-reversing Manga Mode enabled.

There is a rather nice thumbnail view for navigating between pages, and the page turn animations are way better than those of the category leader Comic Zeal. But you also miss some CZ features, like the auto-tracking which will scroll a page a section at a time when you tap the “next” button.

Finally, there’s the RSS reader, which lets you add any feed you like. There are a few comic books news sites pre-loaded, but you can add in more by typing in the feed address. The reader shows summaries, and you can click through to a web view. This could be used to read web-comics, although it’s not really suited for that.

You should probably take a look at the instructions and videos on the developer’s site to see if you like it, but CR is a competent reader with a good amount of polish. It cost just $4.

Comic Reader product page [iTunes]

Comic Reader for iPad [Obsidian]

Clever: The Sound Cover is an iPad case with a speaker inside

What if your iPad 2’s Smart Cover could also be a super-thin, super-loud speaker? If Petur Olafsson’s Sound Cover project takes off on Kickstarter, then maybe it will.

From the outside, the Sound Cover doesn’t look much different from a padded folio case, with a leather cover and an aluminum kickstand. It’ll even wake and sleep your iPad as it opens and closes, using the magic of magnets.

Open it up, though, and you get a pair of NXT stereo speakers, flat units which use Distributed Mode Loudspeakers (DML) to pump out sound. Petur and his company Onanoff say that the volume is 300% louder than the iPad’s own speaker.

Connection to the iPad is via 3.5mm jack, which makes sense for something always joined to the iPad. If you really hate wires then a Bluetooth version will also be available. The speaker’s battery will last for 12 hours on a charge.

If it sounds good, then the Sound Cover looks to be a fantastic idea. And even the $129 ($110 for Kickstarter pledgers) price seems reasonable when you consider that it takes the place of not just a speaker but also the $70 leather Smart Cover.

Sound Cover: iPad2 Cover with Powerful Built-in Speakers [Kickstarter. Thanks, Petur!]

Ready to kick off Monday with some iOS flashing? Excellent, because Apple’s just released the second beta of iOS 5.1, lovingly christened 9B5127c. No Cupertino devices at Engadget HQ have taken the plunge, but as noted by MacRumors, the beta enables individual picture deletion from Photo Stream — which differs from the existing delete all or nothing implementation. Too early to tell if it’ll finally squash any lingering battery bugs once and for all, but you can hit Apple’s developer website to get your download on — just be ready for the next one in two weeks, cool?

[Thanks, Haseeb]

iOS 5.1 beta 2 out of the oven, ready for developer consumption originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 12 Dec 2011 14:36:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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There are two kinds of iPad case. Utility cases, which add a keyboard, or prop the thing up, or stick the iPad to the fridge with magnets. And case cases, which do little more than cover and protect your tablet, hopefully in a stylish manner.

The Lacambra case, from leather bag supremo Cristina Alvarez Lacambra, manages to be both. The canvas-lined leather sleeves are all business, with a splash of glamour — zipper-closing folios with plenty of pockets for business cards and even the camera connection kit.

But a new update brings a few utility-style features to the brightly-colored cases.

Lacambra gave me a case to review, and I made a few suggestions. Maybe it could have a hole so you can reach the volume controls, I said. And Cristina wondered if the case should stand up for movie watching and typing, like the Smart Cover.

v2.0 has the volume hole, and a rather inventive solution to propping the thing up. The cases — leather and lined with canvas — now come with a leather strap and a canvas widget. The widget is like a miniature Smart Cover, folding over on itself to make a Toblerone-like triangular tube. This wedges inside the open case and props it up for typing purposes. When not in use, you can stow it in an internal pocket.

The strap is even cleverer, and once you have gotten used to it, easy to deploy. The case now has magnets under its skin, and the strap has them too. Thus, you let it click into place when the case is propped up and the whole thing holds together like a big letter “A.” It works better than you’d think.

What I like most is that you can just leave these parts at home. In fact, the case is roomy enough to fit your Smart Cover in there, too, so you could always just use that for typing and movie watching. Thusly, the Lacambra case manages to be simple, and yet can be extended with these add-ons.

There are a couple things to watch for if you decide on one of these cases. The first is that the retention straps come very, very close to the screen edges, which might make you feel cramped. The second is that there is no magnet to lock and unlock the iPad 2 when it opens and closes. Cristina says that they had trouble making it work consistently, and so left it out.

Finally, the quality is great. The case is one of the best made I have tried. Whether you want it is down to your tastes, then, and you don’t have to pick the shocking pink shown here. You can even choose boring black, or mix colors for the various leather panels and canvas linings to make a double-rainbow monstrosity.

The Lacambra case is available now, for €125/$174. Photos on the site should be updated soon to reflect the new design.

Lacambra iPad Case product page [Lacambra. Thanks, Cristina!]

Even Apple’s formidable legal team might have trouble shutting down the Plug Bug

I can hear you. “What?” you say, “Another damn power adapter? What’s wrong with you, Sorrel?” But before you nod off, give me a second. This power adapter is very, very clever.

It’s called the PlugBug, and it charges both your iPad and your MacBook at the same time. That sounds easy, but the problem is that Apple won’t let anyone else make MagSafe adapters. So TwelveSouth, the company behind the PlugBug, didn’t even bother to make this part of the charger. Instead, the little red unit replaces the removable two-prong adapter unit on your existing MacBook power brick.

Ingenious, right? I have always liked Apple’s chargers because it’s so easy to swap in the correct set of prongs when you travel, but this makes it even more useful, especially at trade shows like CES where plug-space can be hard to come by.

The PlugBug can also work as a standalone 10-watt USB charger, and comes with its own cover so the innards aren’t exposed while you use it.

The PlugBug is available now, for $35.

PlugBug product page [TwelveSouth via Chris Herbert]