Amidst the mountain of DAB/WiFi radios we’re covering at the moment, I thought it wise to include a few alternatives. The PURE i10 proved to be an admirable iPod dock, but not so hot for the iPhone 3G. This time I’m looking at a dock that includes room-filling speakers, the very iTouch/iPhone complimentary Altec Lansing T612.
If you’re not a fan of radio in general, and enjoy listening to music that you’re thoroughly in control of then an iPod/iPhone dock is a logical choice… if you own an iPod or iPhone, of course.
Not long after my attention was drawn to the Roberts Radio Robi by a forum post asking about iPhone compatible DAB tuners a review sample has turned up.
I popped open the non-welded clamshell packaging of the Robi, unfurled its lengthy cable, hooked it up to my iPhone, said “no” to the annoying dialogue about incompatible accessories and airplane mode and waited for the Robi to tune in.
Proporta have a range of leather cases that ensure maximum screen protection with an aluminium lining in the top flap. This thin-grey striped effect leather case for the iPhone 3G is an attractive limited edition example of the Alu-Leather range.
I think my single favourite feature of this case is the fact that it uses three very small, soft-coated, metal grips to secure the iPhone in place. This means that the outside edge of the phone is not encased in plastic, silicone or leather making it one of the best cases available for granting easy access to buttons and certainly a very good case for showing off the iPhone’s attractive styling.
Every now and then you need some extensive on the road entertainment and might want to carry a PSP, DS, portable media player, camera, GPS, and a wealth of other gadgets on your person.
You can tuck them haphazardly into a laptop bag, shoulder bag, carrier bag or a burlap sack but all of those would be less than ideal, particularly if some of your precious gadgets lack individual cases.
Proporta have the solution in the form of the aptly named “Gadget Bag” which is, as you might have guessed, a bag for all of your gadgets.
The lovely big screen on your shiny new HTC Touch HD is a surefire scratch and fingerprint magnet, fortunately Proporta are on the case with their re-apply-able, washable and non-adhesive screen protector.
If you want to keep your Touch HD safe in a pocket or bag, without encasing it entirely in leather, plastic or silicone then Proporta have also produced one of their lovely minimalistic cases for the HTC Touch HD which has a very small but very secure clipping system that shows off your phone in all its glory.
The second of five SENA cases waiting patiently in line for the Gadgetoid review treatment is the SENA MagnetFlipper. If the name didn’t give you a clue then it’s a magnet-secured flip case for the iPhone 3G.
The MagnetFlipper is one of my favourite cases from SENA, it’s well designed, secures the iPhone better than most other cases and flips down so you don’t have to worry about maneuvering the flap around a headphone jack or folding it behind the case when talking on the phone.
Of all the iPhone cases that I have looked at lately, including offerings from Piel Frama and Sena, the Krusell Orbit Flex case for the iPhone 3g is clearly the most flexible and functional. It’s all in the name!
That doesn’t necessarily mean it’s the best case in every situation, however, the wealth of features offered by the Krusell case come at the cost of a fair amount of added bulk and an extremely limited selection of styles.
I was fortunate enough to get my hands on Noise.io a couple of days before its release. Now, a couple of days after, I have been absolutely stunned by the iPhone synthesizer and even bought the application, despite already having it, to support the small but talented development team who have invested months in this project. Fortunately, they’ve already shifted something in the region of 2000 copies to synth-heads across the globe and the more people with Noise.io the better the community, and user generated content, will get.
So, without further ado, head over the fold for my full Noise.io review.
P.S. if you want a cracked version of Noise.io, or are looking for the Noise.io cracked app, need a Noise.io crack or want Noise.io cracked… suck it up and buy the $9.99 application, you cheapskate! Failing that, wait for the demo version, it’s called “Noise.io Pro” for a reason.
You may, or may not, have noticed that we’re getting fairly close to that most wonderful time of the year, when radio stations start playing Mistletoe & Wine, scarf and gloves become a daily necessity and mince pies are back on the supermarket shelves.
It’s also a time of the year where a fiercely drawn out competition takes place on both the real and virtual high street between the manufacturers of toys, games and other technology wonders.
The Gadgetoid team was kindly invited down to the St Martins Lane Hotel, London to get a hands-on look at some of Microsofts games and gadgets that will be available in stores in time for christmas. Follow the jump for our thoughts about the New Xbox Experience, Live Mesh and more…
Alas, I’ve been so addicted to actually playing with it, and so busy traveling down for the Microsoft Christmas Showcase that I didn’t have time to crank out a review to coincide with its release, rest assured a review is on its way for this fantastic iPhone synth- if you’re in a fit of indecision about whether or not to purchase it that must be resolved immediately then take my advice and do so!
I can say, with absolute certainty, that if you have any interest in sound design or synthesized music then this is an absolutely essential iPhone purchase that will blow you away with its sheer power. The idea of turning your iPhone into a pocket-sized synthesizer with this much power seems like a pipe dream, Noise.io has not only gone and done it but set the bar so absurdly high for competition it’ll likely be unchallenged for months, if not forever.
The concept of an iPhone Synthesizer is pretty brave, the memory management issues in the iPhone’s firmware are a pain to deal with and cause every single application to experience periodic crashes. You’ll be using Noise.io so often that you will, unfortunately, experience crashes and perceive them as being more frequent. Rest assured, though, that Noise.io is freakin’ stable and rebooting your iPhone before (and after, if you want other Apps to run without crashing) using it is a good idea.
From my first tentative try of the disappointing and absurd Band for iPhone, to immediately googling “iPhone Syntheszier” it’s been about two months with quite significant delays to the release of Noise.io. But those delays have more than paid off with some of the functionality they took the extra time to include, the step sequencer for example, being instrumental to my love of the app. What we have now is an absolutely genuine iPhone Synthesizer that looked so good on paper that people claimed it was vapor-ware. The reality of Noise.io is, however, beating all but the wildest of expectations and the only serious complaints I’ve seen thus far are lack of WAV export and crashes due to the iPhones rather unfortunate take on memory management and Noise.io’s heavy use of the iPhone’s resources. Perhaps a firmware 3.0 will make things better, only time will tell.
I will continue to tinker with Noise.io and create patch banks, but I’m sure there are sound designers out there who will massively eclipse my skills and come out with some awesome content for Noise.io that will go down a storm with the less tech-savvy owners and with those who just want to use Noise.io as a live performance tool.
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You may, or may not, have noticed that we’re getting fairly close to that most wonderful time of the year, when radio stations start playing Mistletoe & Wine, scarf and gloves become a daily necessity and mince pies are back on the supermarket shelves.
