Hasta La Gadget!

You’ve heard about it for months, and now the universal remote that looks nothing like a universal remote is finally on sale in 52 nations. Thinkflood’s RedEye Mini — which simply plugs into the headphone jack of your iPad, iPhone or iPod touch — can now be procured for $49, and when used with the gratis app in the App Store, can control anything in your home entertainment setup that accepts IR commands. ZDNet was fortunate enough to get a little hands-on time with the device, and their early impressions are quite positive. In fact, they recommend skipping the Harmony hoopla and heading right for this if you’re already an iDevice owner (who doesn’t use an imposing case or Bumper), and at a buck under a Grant, we certainly aren’t in a position to argue.

Continue reading RedEye Mini dongle now on sale for $49, looking good in early review

RedEye Mini dongle now on sale for $49, looking good in early review originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 20 Jul 2010 10:43:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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The name may sound like something out of a Final Fantasy game, but we hear it stands for Music On the Go, and today MOG is doing the name proud by bringing a wide swath of streaming music to Android and iPhone. $10 a month gives you access to over 8 million songs, and during a completely unscientific impromptu testing session, that number actually included a reasonable amount of most everything we’d want. Of course, you don’t get to keep any of the 320Kbps MP3 files, merely store local copies on your phone for as long as you pony up, and even on Android (where we take task switching for granted) the merest jump to web browser stops those tracks cold. (MOG says it’s working on it, at least for the iOS 4 version.) We were also disappointed to find out the MOG Radio feature is nothing like we were told — rather than a Pandora you can tune to specific artists, the feature just seems to filter your existing queue. Playback options were also lacking in this early version (like volume and jog sliders) but at least MOG’s got a slick, robust discovery mode, and with this many songs to choose from that’s a very good thing. Both versions should be live immediately with three-day, no commitment trials, and there’s a press release after the break if you still need more info.

Update: It turns out our difficulties with MOG Radio were due to a buggy preview build; downloading a fresh version of the app this morning, the Pandora-like functionality worked just fine.

Continue reading MOG arrives on iPhone, Android with 8 million songs but no multitasking mode (update)

MOG arrives on iPhone, Android with 8 million songs but no multitasking mode (update) originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 20 Jul 2010 08:00:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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“An iPhone, an iPhone, my carrier’s reputation for an iPhone.” Grab a cup of coffee and get yourself comfortable, fans of behind-the-scenes industry drama. Wired has published an exhaustive and fascinating expose on the “loveless celebrity marriage” that is Apple and AT&T — all from sources familiar with the matters but who cannot (or will not) be named, of course. In other words, don’t take this as gospel, but frankly, none of this sounds too crazy or outside the realm of what we’ve already surmised ourselves. In brief, the two companies have been contentious towards one another since just after the iPhone was unveiled. For AT&T’s part, the carrier was reportedly taken aback when its requests (delivered by Senior VP Kris Rinne) to restrict YouTube’s bandwidth usage (or make it WiFi-only) while the network infrastructure was built up fell on deaf ears in Cupertino. Word has it Apple also refused to allow its devices to be used in campaigns to combat Verizon’s Map for That ads: “It was [effective] because of AT&T’s network. We would have been letting them use the iPhone to put lipstick on a pig,” remarked one anonymous Apple exec.

What’s most interesting to us here is the ongoing reported discussion to drop AT&T in favor for Verizon. That chapter apparently begins just months after the original’s launch, with an investigative team (including Scott Forstall) ultimately concluding that Qualcomm‘s CDMA (or CDMA / GSM hybrid) chips would require a complete redesign of the device, not to mention a nasty lawsuit with AT&T over its exclusive contract (perhaps a minor issue, knowing Apple). Back then, Verizon wasn’t seen as a guaranteed improvement, and according to one executive privy to such meetings, the carrier switch has been discussed at least a half dozen times, with the general consensus always being that it would “cause as many problems as it solved.” We can’t imagine this is gonna help stem the perpetual VZW iPhone rumor mill.

Hit up the source link for the full tale, which does hit on a fundamental issue of the mobile industry going forward: as smartphone makers continue to push their devices’ capabilities, bandwidth concerns will continue to grow and carriers are likely to take the majority of the blame. If you ask us, David Fincher has just found his ideal follow-up to The Social Network — we’d especially love to see someone film the part where AT&T asks Steve Jobs to ditch the turtleneck and wear a suit when meeting with its board of directors.

Apple discussed Verizon switch ‘at least half a dozen times,’ and other stories about its AT&T relationship originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 19 Jul 2010 19:25:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Continue reading iHome iA100ZE iPad alarm dock raises questions, supplies few answers

iHome iA100ZE iPad alarm dock raises questions, supplies few answers originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 19 Jul 2010 16:04:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Experience a little bit of Las Vegas in your own home or office with Jackpot Slots for the iPhone: a USB dock with a knob-topped lever on the side which turns the phone into a one-armed-bandit.

The plastic block costs $40, and the accompanying application is free in the App Store. Just pull the lever and “enjoy” the slot-machine experience. There’s even a proper contest which buyers can enter: score enough points and you’ll be included in a competition to win a real trip to Vegas, or even money.

Sadly, the real experiences of Las Vegas aren’t replicated. While you could sit in your office chair with a cup full of quarters, tossing them in the trash as you play, nobody will bring you free drinks, and no arrogant idiots in too-short shorts, sandals, socks and baseball-caps will be blighting an otherwise well-designed gaming floor and worst of all, there will be no hidden speakers tootling out musak from the bushes, trees and fake rocks lining the streets.

Still, as docks go, Jackpot Slots isn’t a bad one. It works just like any other to charge and sync, and if you pull the lever all the way forwards, your iPhone or iPad Touch will pop out. Just like the eye of that cheating gambler in Scorsese’s Casino when they squeezed his head in a vice.

Jackpot Slots [New Potato via Cult of Mac]

Jackpot Slots [iTunes]