Hasta La Gadget!

This is the OWLE, an aluminum and silicone case which upgrades the audio and video of your iPhone’s camera. The case comes in a few parts. First, there is the silicone sleeve which protects its delicate body upon insertion to the unibody case, itself milled, MacBook-like, from a single block of metal.

Once ensconced in this safe, easy to hold cocoon, the lens is augmented with a 0.45x wide-angle adapter on the front. This uses a 37mm screw-mount, and any other 37mm-screw lens can be swapped in. The sound gets a boost from a small boom microphone which hooks into the headphone jack, and all four of those corners has a standard tripod thread for steady mounting. Finally, there’s a cold-shoe up top for mounting accessories like continuous lights.

You’ll need an iPhone 3GS to really take advantage, as even with the video-enabling workaround we brought you last week, the camera in the iPhone 3G still sucks. The price of the OWLE is a reasonable $130, which strikes us as fair for what you’re getting.

OWLE iPhone Video/Audio Rig [ThinkGeek]

This article was written on January 08, 2009 by CyberNet.

Windows only
The other day Ward pointed out in the comments a simple little application that’s available for Windows users who are looking to convert movies to a video format that the iPhone and iPods can play. We talked about being able to do this using the SUPER video converter, but a lot of you are probably just wanting to go from AVI to MP4. If that’s the case the iPodME program is just what you need.

You can see in the screenshot to the right why there is little confusion about how to use this program. You simply drag and drop the movies into the application that you’re looking to convert, choose from the options available on the screen, and let it do its thing.

Here are some of the reasons why I love iPodME:

• Simple interface means you don’t have to fuss with options you probably wouldn’t change anyway
• The program requires no installation, and the single executable is under 3MB in size
• You can start converting one video, and at the same time continue to add more files to the list
• Choose from different profiles that target the speed of conversion, quality, and size of output
• Shutdown the computer after encoding is done (great for overnight processing)
• It’s free!

This is definitely an application you should try out if you enjoy watching videos on your iPhone or iPod. And in case you’re wondering about performance it took me around 35 minutes to convert a 2-hour (700MB) AVI movie on my Pentium-D machine. That’s pretty darn good!

iPodMe Homepage

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Vodafone has decided if it can’t give us the iPhone for the holidays, it’ll do the next best thing and spill details of its launch and pricing of Apple’s finest. Available from January 14, the iPhone will be yours for £30 ($48) per month on two-year contracts, though up-front charges will set you back £239 ($386) for the 32GB 3GS variety. A monthly 1GB of 3G data is permitted, alongside unlimited WiFi, but what might be most interesting here is that Vodafone will allow you to use the iPhone as a modem. Such use will not be covered by your allowance of course, and will cost £5 ($8) for each 500MB downloaded, but we’re happy to see a carrier offering the option. Furthermore, though Vodafone’s agreement to carry the iPhone seemed a rushed defensive move, the company now claims it has been preparing its network for over a year to handle the increased traffic it expects.

iPhone and Vodafone UK set the date: January 14 originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 21 Dec 2009 06:03:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Ford has already shown it can tie the controls of Sync-enabled vehicles to the music and contacts databases of drivers phones and PMPs and though it may take time before our emotions can be detected, the next step is extending that connectivity to downloadable apps on those devices. Since Sync first debuted, the explosion of the App Store concept has meant nearly every smartphone owner is packing plenty of ways to access and use information from the internet, but without an easy way to interact with it while driving. Extending access to vehicle controls could lead to programs like Pandora or Google’s turn by turn navigation letting users change stations with their existing stereo knobs, or listen to directions via the in-car system by simply updating their existing software. The first ones to get a crack at it? A few university students, check after the break to see what they came up with given just a few weeks to test system out.

Continue reading Ford to give Sync some App Store flavor, opening API to devs in 2010

Ford to give Sync some App Store flavor, opening API to devs in 2010 originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 18 Dec 2009 14:12:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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So, just how big is the iPhone’s growth in the Japanese market? According to recent numbers for Tokyo-based research group, Impress, the iPhone now controls roughly 26 percent of the Japanese smartphone market, having moved more than three million handsets in just over a year.

The numbers run counter to early reports that the Apple phone was a flop in the country.