Polamatic home screen

A Polaroid app! It seems so obvious an idea, it’s a wonder it took so long to happen. I’m happy to report: Polamatic was worth the wait.

Let’s get the obvious stuff out of the way: yes, Polamatic is late to the photo-sharing party. But it’s also a supremely well-made app, and it’s got an ace in the hole: the instantly-recognizable Polaroid brand brings with it a nostalgia factor that many a casual photographer will find hard to resist. After all, the current king of the photo-sharing mountain, Instagram, plays off of that same nostalgia, even if it’s not in an obvious, overt way. (It’s no coincidence that Instagram‘s photos are square.)

Polamatic frames

If you read the word “Polaroid,” what comes to mind? Probably a square picture in a white photo frame, with an extended white area on the bottom. Developer Appadana, shrewdly realizing that this would be the most identifiable factor to a Polaroid photo, put a lot of care and attention into bringing those white frames to an easy-to-use app format. There are a total of twelve white frames to choose from, in fact, and they come in a variety of states — from a pristine, “new” Polaroid frame, to a “crushed,” “dirty,” or “smudged ink” frame. One of the best features of the app is that these frames aren’t CG mockups or vectors or what have you. They’re high-resolution scans of actual Polaroid film frames.

Polamatic filters

Like Instagram, which this app was obviously built to go head-to-head against, Polamatic comes with a selection of built-in filters that make your photos look better with a single tap. Twelve filters (twelve is a recurring theme throughout the app) bring out more vibrant colors, turn your image black & white, apply sepia tones, and lots of other effects. To my eyes, Instagram‘s filters tend to produce more beautiful results, but what’s cool about Polamatic‘s filters, is that they really do make your pictures look as if they were taken on an old Polaroid camera. These filters seem custom made with that in mind.

Polamatic text editing

To take a photo, you simply start up the app. The photo-taking screen is the first thing that comes up. Tap the shutter button to take your photo. One area Polamatic definitely scores over Instagram is that it lets you zoom your camera lens. (I’ve always wondered why you can’t zoom with Instagram; the only way around this is to use the iPhone’s built-in camera app to take your picture and then import it into Instagram after the fact. It’s clunky, it takes longer, and it’s just plain dumb.) Polamatic lets you pinch-to-zoom the same way that the iPhone camera app does.

Polamatic's frames have names like "Crushed" and "I Sat On It"

After you’re happy with the photo you captured, use the various tabs in the app to apply the frame of your choice and a nice filter. The next step is a great one for those who remember Polaroid photos: you can write on the bottom white space on the frame. Write anything you want, choosing from twelve (there’s that number again) fonts and twelve font colors. Click the “Save” button and the entire image — frame and all — is saved to your photo album. Polamatic is also well-connected for social network junkies: you can upload directly to Facebook, Twitter, Flickr, Tumblr, Instagram, or email.

Unlockable content packs for Polamatic

Polamatic‘s smartest move was probably not creating a new social network just for this app. iPhone users already have loads of social networks for sharing photos; I don’t think anyone is clamoring for yet another. Another difference from the competition: Polamatic‘s not free. It’ll cost you $.99, and there’s $3 worth in unlockable add-ons that provide extra content like more filters and more frames.

A finished Polamatic photo as it appears in your photo gallery

Some users have complained that photos output to a resolution of only about 500px square; a helpful staff member at Appadana tells me they’ve already submitted an update to the App Store that increases the resolution. (The update also adds some new customization settings for the text editing feature.) I experienced a couple of crashes while working with the app — though it never caused me to lose my work — but this doesn’t concern me, since Appadana is already demonstrating a strong commitment to updating the app.

Depending on your level of enthusiasm for photography apps and/or how strongly you identify with the Polaroid generation… Polamatic might just be a must-have. It delivers a quality experience that beautifully brings Polaroid photos into the digital age. It’s best when it’s used in conjunction with your favorite social network — even if that just happens to be Instagram.

Okay, maybe we’re getting a little obsessed with Pebble. (Only because it’s the best smartwatch idea ever.) But this news is way too juicy to pass up: when it ships, Pebble will work with another Kickstarter-funded wireless device called Twine. Which opens up the possibilities for both devices in wildly creative ways.

First, a bit of explanation.

Twine is a tiny (2.5″ square) wireless device, and it may not be much to look at, but it’s got some crazy cool goodies under the hood. It’s loaded with sensors and designed to send you notifications when it detects various things happening. For example, attach a Twine box to your front door, and the on-board accelerometer will notify you when someone opens it. How you’re notified is up to you — it can be anything capable of receiving notifications, including your computer or smartphone, and using email, text, or even Twitter. Twine also comes with a clever web app, which you use to set up the notifications you want to receive via simple, point-and-click “if/then” commands (i.e., “if my front door vibrates, then send me a text message”). The device is so smart, Twine will even email you when its two AAA batteries need replacing.

Twine's web app interface

After a Kickstarter fan of both Twine and Pebble noted that the two devices would work beautifully together “like peanut butter and chocolate,” the two teams of developers put their heads together and made it happen. Now, Twine’s web app will include Pebble actions, so you can have your Pebble smartwatch notify you whenever Twine senses some action you’ve set it to monitor.

And that’s only the tip of the iceberg. Since both devices are open source, code-writers should find it easy to dream up new applications for how the two devices will work in tandem. The possibilities might just be endless. The initial pre-order pledges for both Pebble and Twine are now sold out, but both companies intend to offer their devices for sale to the public once those orders have been filled.

Now I’m hardly an open source enthusiast, but the irony is not lost on me that one of the most exciting Apple-friendly accessories to come along in a while completely eschews Apple’s “closed system” dogma.

The Smithsonian's Ripley Center

The Smithsonian museum in Washington, DC today launched a new exhibit devoted to the patent office. Planned as a series of exhibitions, first up is an exhibit devoted to over 300 patents held by the late Steve Jobs.

The exhibit is called “The Patents and Trademarks of Steve Jobs: Art and Technology That Changed the World.” The Smithsonian’s description says:

Learn about the far-reaching impact of Steve Jobs’ entrepreneurship and innovation on our daily lives, and how his patents and trademarks reveal the importance intellectual property plays in the global marketplace.

Included in the collection are a Macintosh from 1985, along with its mouse and keyboard; a NeXT monitor, keyboard, mouse, sound box, and microcomputer; a 2010 model iPod; and 312 documents from the patent office.

The exhibit can be viewed in the Ripley Center building (Concourse, Sublevel 3) starting today (May 11, 2012) and running through July 8, 2012. For more information, prospective visitors can call 202-633-1000, or visit The Smithsonian’s website.

[Image source]

Love or loathe him, everyone agrees that Steve Jobs was a true original. Here are 60 of his very best, most honest and inspiring quotes. For your convenience, we’ve organized them by topic.

You can either select a topic below, or scroll through the entire list.

Creativity | Innovation | Design | Business | Money | The Public | Life & Death | Legacy

Creativity

Creativity is just connecting things.

It’s only by saying no that you can concentrate on the things that are really important.

If you want to live your life in a creative way, as an artist, you have to not look back too much. You have to be willing to take whatever you’ve done and whoever you were and throw them away.

I’m a big believer in boredom. Boredom allows one to indulge in curiosity and out of curiosity comes everything. All the [technology] stuff is wonderful, but having nothing to do can be wonderful, too.

When you first start off trying to solve a problem, the first solutions you come up with are very complex, and most people stop there. But if you keep going, and live with the problem and peel more layers of the onion off, you can often-times arrive at some very elegant and simple solutions. Most people just don’t put in the time or energy to get there.

Stay hungry, stay foolish.

Innovation

Innovation… is not about money. It’s about the people you have, how you’re led, and how much you get it.

Innovation distinguishes between a leader and a follower.

I have a great respect for incremental improvement, and I’ve done that sort of thing in my life, but I’ve always been attracted to the more revolutionary changes. I don’t know why. Because they’re harder. They’re much more stressful emotionally. And you usually go through a period where everybody tells you that you’ve completely failed.

Sometimes when you innovate, you make mistakes. It is best to admit them quickly, and get on with improving your other innovations.

I think if you do something and it turns out pretty good, then you should go do something else wonderful, not dwell on it for too long. Just figure out what’s next.

Quality is more important than quantity. One home run is much better than two doubles.

My observation is that the doers are the major thinkers. The people that really create the things that change this industry are both the thinker and doer in one person.

If anybody’s going to make our products obsolete, I want it to be us.

Design

The broader one’s understanding of the human experience, the better design we will have.

Design is not just what it looks like and feels like. Design is how it works.

Design is the fundamental soul of a man-made creation that ends up expressing itself in successive outer layers of the product or service.

That’s been one of my mantras – focus and simplicity. Simple can be harder than complex: You have to work hard to get your thinking clean to make it simple. But it’s worth it in the end because once you get there, you can move mountains.

Things don’t have to change the world to be important.

When you first start off trying to solve a problem, the first solutions you come up with are very complex, and most people stop there. But if you keep going, and live with the problem and peel more layers of the onion off, you can often times arrive at some very elegant and simple solutions. Most people just don’t put in the time or energy to get there. We believe that customers are smart, and want objects which are well thought through.

It’s really hard to design products by focus groups. A lot of times, people don’t know what they want until you show it to them.

We had a fundamental belief that doing it right the first time was going to be easier than having to go back and fix it. And I cannot say strongly enough that the repercussions of that attitude are staggering.

We humans are tool builders. We can fashion tools that amplify [the] inherent abilities that we have to spectacular magnitudes.

When you’re a carpenter making a beautiful chest of drawers, you’re not going to use a piece of plywood on the back, even though it faces the wall and nobody will ever see it. You’ll know it’s there, so you’re going to use a beautiful piece of wood on the back.

Business

It’s more fun to be a pirate than to join the Navy.

Be a yardstick of quality. Some people aren’t used to an environment where excellence is expected.

My model for business is the Beatles. They were four guys that kept each other’s negative tendencies in check; they balanced each other. And the total was greater than the sum of the parts.

I’m convinced that about half of what separates the successful entrepreneurs from the non-successful ones is pure perseverance.

My job is not to be easy on people. My jobs is to take these great people we have and to push them and make them even better.

To me, the company is one of humanity’s most amazing inventions. It’s totally abstract. Sure, you have to build something with bricks and mortar to put the people in, but basically a company is this abstract construct we’ve invented, and it’s incredibly powerful.

If they are working in an environment where excellence is expected, then they will do excellent work without anything but self-motivation. I’m talking about an environment in which excellence is noticed and respected and is in the culture. If you have that, you don’t have to tell people to do excellent work. They understand it from their surroundings.

My best contribution to the group is not settling for anything but really good stuff. A lot of times, people don’t do great things because great things really aren’t expected of them, and nobody ever really demands that they try, and nobody says, ‘Hey, that’s the culture here’. If you set that up, people will do things that are greater than they ever thought they could be. Really some great work that will go down in history.

Money

I’m the only person I know that’s lost a quarter of a billion dollars in one year… It’s very character-building.

When [start-ups] sell out, even though they get fabulously rich, they’re gipping themselves out of one of the potentially most rewarding experiences of their unfolding lives. Without it, they may never know their values or how to keep their new-found wealth in perspective.

My favorite things in life don’t cost any money. It’s really clear that the most precious resource we all have is time.

Being the richest man in the cemetery doesn’t matter to me. Going to bed at night saying we’ve done something wonderful, that’s what matters to me.

I don’t view wealth as something that validates my intelligence.

I’m convinced that to give away a dollar effectively is harder than to make a dollar.

The Public

As individuals, people are inherently good. I have a somewhat more pessimistic view of people in groups.

It’s hard for [customers] to tell you what they want when they’ve never seen anything remotely like it.

You can’t just ask customers what they want and then try to give that to them. By the time you get it built, they’ll want something new.

When you’re young, you look at television and think, there’s a conspiracy. The networks have conspired to dumb us down. But when you get a little older, you realize that’s not true. The networks are in business to give people exactly what they want.

Our belief was that if we kept putting great products in front of customers, they would continue to open their wallets.

Life & Death

No one wants to die. Even people who want to go to heaven don’t want to die to get there. And yet death is the destination we all share. No one has ever escaped it. And that is as it should be, because Death is very likely the single best invention of Life. It is Life’s change agent. It clears out the old to make way for the new.

Sometimes life hits you in the head with a brick. Don’t lose faith.

Technology is nothing. What’s important is that you have a faith in people, that they’re basically good and smart, and if you give them tools, they’ll do wonderful things with them.

One way to remember who you are is to remember who your heroes are.

I think different religions are different doors to the same house. Sometimes I think the house exists, and sometimes I don’t. It’s the great mystery.

The older I get, the more I see how much motivations matter.

I think the things you most regret in life are things you didn’t do.

Music is good for the soul.

I believe life is an intelligent thing — that things aren’t random.

Oh wow. Oh wow. Oh wow.

- Jobs’ last words, on his death bed

Legacy

I want to put a ding in the universe.

You have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something — your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever. This approach has never let me down, and it has made all the difference in my life.

Remembering that I’ll be dead soon is the most important tool I’ve ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life. Because almost everything — all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure — these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important.

Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart.

We don’t get a chance to do that many things, and every one should be really excellent. Because this is our life. Life is brief, and then you die, you know? So this is what we’ve chosen to do with our life.

Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped by dogma — which is living with the results of other people’s thinking. Don’t let the noise of others’ opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.

Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven’t found it yet, keep looking. Don’t settle. As with all matters of the heart, you’ll know when you find it. And, like any great relationship, it just gets better and better as the years roll on.

The new iPad version, referred to as iPad 2,4 (which takes into account the three other versions of Apple’s best-selling tablet) has junked the 45 nanometer, dual core A5 processor in favor of a smaller 32 nanometer version of the same chip. The new chip is smaller by forty percent compared to the 45 nanometer version. The new 32 nanometer iteration of the A5 chip is also being used for the newest version of the Apple TV.

The 32 nanometer A5 chip has the same performance specs as the 45 nanometer A5 chip, but the difference is that the smaller chip has lesser power requirements, which translates to lower power consumption. Aside from this, it will also run a little cooler than the bigger chip.

According to tests conducted by Anandtech, the iPad 2,4 will likely give a user an extra two hours of battery life, especially when used for web surfing, watching movies and playing games.

Based on the Anandtech article, the gains in battery life is significant. The battery life when web browsing increased by 15 percent, an almost 30 percent increase when gaming, and an 18 percent increase when watching videos.

It may be a little hard to locate the new iPad 2,4 though, because Apple still has a lot of stocks of the old iPad 2. Additionally, the new iPad 2 version will be installed with iOS 5.1, the old iPad 2 comes preinstalled with iOS 5.0.1.

The success of Pebble — the customizable e-ink wristwatch that syncs to your iPhone via Bluetooth — is mind-blowing. With a week-and-a-half still to go on its Kickstarter campaign, Pebble might just be on track to break $10 million in pledges. And now, they’ve got their very first partner app.

Online workout-tracking service RunKeeper has signed on as Pebble’s first third-party app developer. RunKeeper boasts a user base of 10 million fitness enthusiasts, who use its web and mobile apps and their device’s GPS to track their progress running, cycling, walking, hiking, or anything else that gets people up and moving. It records all that data itself, runs the numbers, and then spits out stats that help you understand how you’re doing with your speed, pace, elapsed time, and more.

Presumably, this means that RunKeeper will develop and publish a dedicated app for Pebble, allowing users to tap into RunKeeper’s tracking services directly from their Pebble watch. The Pebble team is actively seeking out more app developers to sign on with their hotly-anticipated device.

by Simon Carpenter, Guest Blogger

Living Language (Spanish) for iPhone and iPad

The standard bearer for language-learning apps, this series of apps from Random House Digital presents real language courses that teach vocabulary and grammar with some fun interactive games thrown in. The free download gets you eleven free lessons, but you can unlock the full app for $14.99, getting you all 46 lessons. Random House Digital has similar apps available for learning French, Italian, German, Chinese, and Japanese.

Learn a Language with Michel Thomas for iPhone

This one hails from the U.K., where Thomas’ method for learning new languages has garnered some heavy-hitter endorsements from the likes of Woody Allen, Emma Thompson, and Stephen Fry. Thomas teaches you with a simple, but highly effective process: “you listen, he explains, you speak.” Lessons run an hour a piece, and you buy the hour/lessons you want from inside the free app, for $4.99 a pop. Lessons are available for Spanish, French, Italian, and German.

Learn Chinese Quick for iPhone and iPad

Learn Chinese Quick puts its focus on efficiency above all else. It’s basically a flashcard app, but there’s a nice feature that quizzes you on how much of a language you may already know, and then dynamically adjusts the available flashcards to weed that stuff out, letting you zero in on words that are new to you. The free app includes 250 cards, but there are 1,000 total flashcards available for a $.99 in-app purchase. The Learn Quick series also offers apps available for Spanish, French, Italian, and Hindi.

Mango Languages for iPhone

One of the most comprehensive apps is also the most cost-effective — it’s free! No in-app purchases, no nothing. It offers classes for 35 foreign languages and 15 English-as-a-second-language. The catch is that it requires a connection to your local library, and only if your library has a Mango Languages subscription. It teaches not only vocabulary and grammar, but also pronunciation (by native speakers) and helpful cultural tips, such as slang usages of common words.

Book2 for iPhone

This one uses a novel 3-step method: you learn while listening, training, and sleeping. The app actually monitors your sleeping patterns and activates itself at the right time, playing its short sentences while you’re asleep, to enhance your recall. Lessons are available in-app for 40 different languages, but they’ll run you $3.99 each for anything more than a language’s first chapter.

World Nomads: Thai Language Guide for iPhone

The official app of WorldNomads.com provides this 100% free learning experience that will help any world traveler speak to natives. Every phrase is presented in common conversational language, though it should be noted that this is not a comprehensive teaching/learning app. It’s meant instead to help travelers quickly and easily talk in languages foreign to them. Nearly 30 apps like this one are available (and almost all of them are free), and they cover not only the most common languages like Spanish and French, but also languages that few other apps touch on, such as Cambodian, Indonesian, Swahili, Vietnamese, and many more.

Hebrew in a Month for iPhone and iPad

The “…in a Month” series of apps (which offers 14 languages for you to learn) teaches you to “overcome your psychological barriers” to understanding how other languages work. You’ll learn how to study other languages, using the same English skills you already have (but may not be cognitively aware of it). Most of their apps cost around $2.99 for iPhone versions and $3.99 for iPad versions.

Simon Carpenter is an Apple enthusiast and avid traveler who loves to study Asian languages. Currently he is preparing for a trip to Thailand where he will learn Thai in Bangkok.

Unless you’re at an Apple press conference, you’ll rarely see Apple chief designer Jonathan Ive on camera. Video captured inside Apple’s Cupertino home office is forbidden. So this video of Ive talking Apple designs inside the legendary Industrial Design Lab at Apple HQ is downright unheard of.

Jonathan “Jony” Ive is Apple’s head designer. He heads up the Industrial Design Group at Apple headquarters, and he’s credited with all of Apple’s most beautiful, most intuitive hardware designs. He has more than 600 patents to his name, and is widely regarded as the most influential technology designer of the last decade.

The footage above is a clip from the documentary film Objectified, from 2009, which is about the human relationship with designed and manufactured products, and the people who make them. Ive appears in a five-minute segment, where he discusses Apple’s design philosophy and some details about the “unibody” metal process used to make the MacBook Air. It’s fascinating viewing, and a must-see for anyone who’s ever been the least bit curious about how Apple makes its products.

I can’t imagine how director Gary Hustwit, who produced and shot Objectified, convinced Apple to let him film in the legendary, ultra-secretive Design Lab, since no one has ever videoed there before (or since).

Lately, I’ve been a little… obsessed… with these questions. Apple fans are convinced iPhone came first. Android fans are convinced their open-source smartphone OS came first.

Who’s right?

I decided it was time to find out, once and for all. So I started digging. I searched and researched and then I searched some more. And in the end, I found that the history of the iPhone and the history of Android are a lot more complex than you may realize.

It occurred to me that the best way for our readers to get their heads around this issue was to present it visually, as a timeline that shows you, point-by-point, exactly who did what, when. With the help of our sister site Infographic Labs, we put together the following infographic. Our intention here is not to point fingers or cast blame — or even to draw conclusions, despite the fact that we’re an Apple-centric website. We created it to try and clarify this very muddy issue, so you can see the facts neatly and clearly, and draw your own conclusions.

Click on the image for the full-size version.

Apple CEO Tim Cook has come out with some rather controversial statements against Android and Windows 8, that may likely be talked about for the next few months.

Cook made the statements during Apple’s first quarter earnings report. The statements he made hints  that Apple does not have any plans of merging the iPad with the Mac. PC Mag has released the full transcript of Cook’s statement.

“Anything can be forced to converge,” Cook said. “But the problem is that the products are about tradeoffs, you begin to make tradeoffs to the point that what you have left at the end of the day doesn’t please anyone.

“You can converge a toaster and a refrigerator, but you know those things are probably not going to be pleasing to the user. So our view is that the tablet market is huge; we’ve said that since day one, we didn’t wait until we had a lot of results. We were using them here, and it was already clear to us that there was so much you could do, and the reasons that people would use those would be so broad, and that’s precisely what we’ve seen. The iPad has taken off in not only consumer in a meaningful way, but in consumer, in education, enterprise, and its sort of everywhere you look now. And the applications are so easy to make very meaningful for someone, and there’s such an abundance of those, that as the ecosystem gets better and better, and as we continue to double down on making great product, I think that the limit here is nowhere in sight.”

“Now – through last quarter, I should say, which is just two years after we shipped the initial iPad – we shipped 67 million. And to put that in some context, it took us 24 years to sell that many Macs. And five years for that many iPods. And over three years for that many iPhones. And we were extremely happy with the trajectory on all of those products. So I think iPad – it’s a profound product, the breadth of it is incredible, and the appeal of it is universal. So I could not be happier with being in the market, and the level of which we’re innovating with the ecosystem and the marker here is incredible.”

“Now in terms of the market itself, IDC and Gartner and Forrester had some numbers out there, and Gartner is saying there’s 3.25 out there by 2015, Forrester is three seventy-five, basically they’re in the mid-three hundreds, about where the PC market is today. And 2015 is only three years from now. So I think that even the you know more formal predicters outside of us are beginning to see these lines cross. So I strongly believe that they will.”

“Now having said that, I also believe that there is a very good market for the MacBook Air,” Cook concluded. “And we continue to innovate in that product. But I do think that it appeals to someone who has a little bit different requirements. And you wouldn’t want to put these things together because you wind up compromising both and not pleasing the user. Some people will prefer to own both, and that’s great there. But I think to make the compromises of convergence, we’re not going to that party. Others might. Others might from a defensive point of view, particularly. We’re going to play in both.”

Cook’s statements are obviously aimed at both Windows 8, which is Microsoft’s new OS built for both desktops and tablets, and hybrid devices like the Asus Transformer Prime – a device that is both a tablet and a PC and runs on the Android mobile operating system. Cook’s statements should be taken with a grain of salt. He was a protégé of Jobs, who is the master at creating these kinds of sensational statements that serve as marketing propaganda. Even the implication that Apple will not merge the iPad and the Mac should not be taken too seriously. Every new update to the Mac OSX makes it look more and more like the iOS, which is quite interesting. If we’re going to look at what Apple is doing versus what Cook just said, it’s more likely that some kind of convergence between OSX and iOS will happen in the future. It will be interesting to know what Cook has up his sleeve and whether these statements are just smoke and mirrors to hide what Apple really plans in the future.

Hack Store home screen

Based on the belief that Apple shouldn’t have the right to approve or disapprove of the apps it sells in the Mac App Store, a group of Russian developers have put together an alternative app store for Mac users, called Hack Store.

The only truly surprising thing about all this is that no one thought of it before. Hack Store, a standalone program made to function identically to the Mac App Store program, aims to be a one-stop home for all of the apps that Apple refuses to allow in the Mac App Store (or that developers aren’t bothering to submit to Apple because they know Apple will never approve them).

It’s no secret that Apple loves control, because they believe that with tighter control over all aspects of their business comes higher quality products. Be that as it may, there are plenty of Mac apps out there that bring added usefulness to desktop and laptop users but that for whatever reason, Apple doesn’t see fit to approve of. Hack Store‘s creators hope that the developers behind these unapproved apps will submit their apps to Hack Store, where approval is guaranteed.

It’s not entirely clear what Hack Store intends to do about quality control, i.e., keeping out malware and the like. But its slogan suggests a promise to users that everything in the Hack Store is safe to use: “No piracy apps here, forever and ever.” Still… Download at your own risk. Particularly since Hack Store is still in its infancy, and appears to be experiencing some growing pains; the app’s instant popularity has caused major server issues for potential customers, many of whom are currently unable to connect to the store. Updates are constantly being posted to Twitter and user questions answered (in slightly broken English) regarding the store’s availability.

Interested in checking out the Hack Store for yourself? Download it at hack-store.com.

A CGI production studio called Transparent House put together this beautiful tribute to Apple that traces the company’s history, from the original Apple I to the first iPad.

The video was first posted online back in 2010, but I just saw it for the first time (thanks, MacTrast) and I *have* to share it. Upon first glimpse, you might wonder what the big deal is. Well, the big deal is this: Transparent House constructed all of the Apple products in this video virtually. None of them are real-world objects; they’re all CGI creations. The close-ups in the video reveal just how much loving attention to detail was put into building these CGI models, because darn if they don’t look astoundingly real.

I have a feeling Steve Jobs himself would have approved of this video; its design sensibilities fit Jobs’ own “clean and simple” ideals. Transparent House says they made the video over ten days’ time, using programs like Autodesk’s 3ds Max and Chaos Group’s V-Ray. They created this animation as an educational tool for the 3D visualization and design industry.

You’ll notice that the only modern Apple products in the video are the iPhone and the iPad. This was done intentionally, as the animation traces the evolution of products that they considered ancestors to the iPad, going through product iterations in between such as the Mac, iMac, and MacBook.

Boy oh boy, is Kickstarter becoming the go-to place for the most innovative Apple accessories. A few weeks ago, I told you about the Pebble e-ink watch. Just this week, I reviewed the Cosmonaut stylus. Today, I’m going to tell you about a smart new iPad cover with a keyboard that transforms your iPad into a MacBook Air-like laptop.

It’s one of the holy grails for Apple fans: the marriage of the “magical” iPad with the convenience of a laptop keyboard. Earlier this week, Apple CEO Tim Cook denied that the company has any plans to converge their Mac line with iOS devices. But that doesn’t mean third-party vendors can’t make it happen with the right accessory, for those who want it.

Brydge might just be the best contender yet for taking the “iPad laptop” crown. It’s a MacBook Air kind of keyboard attachment, but it matches the footprint of the iPad precisely, and it lets you swivel your iPad just like a laptop’s screen. It’s made using the same grade of super-strong “brushed metal” aluminum that Apple is so fond of, so that when the iPad is docked in the Brydge, the two pieces look like a single device. The keyboard even looks for all the world like an Apple keyboard, with black keys arranged exactly the way they appear on a MacBook. (There’s no word on whether the keys might be backlit, but I’m guessing probably not.)

One thing the Brydge does bring to the table that no other iPad keyboard/case has — aside from the convergence factor — is a stereo speaker. This is entirely optional, and affects the product’s price, but it’s said to amplify the iPad’s own meager stereo considerably. You simply snap your iPad into the built-in clamp, which uses a combination of friction and magnetism to hold your iPad in place. There are no plugs or wires to fiddle with; instead, Brydge connects to your iPad via Bluetooth. Once you tether the two devices together in System Settings, you’re good to go. Brydge even puts your iPad to sleep when you close it, just like Apple’s Smart Covers.

MacBook Air (left) and iPad + Brydge (right) thickness comparison

To really get a feel for how the whole thing works, you need to watch the Brydge video above so you can see it in action. You might think that adding a keyboard would make your iPad less portable, or a little harder to navigate (since the screen might be a bit further away than usual), but the video makes it look like a happy marriage. The folks behind Brydge say that when Brydge is connected to an iPad, the combo device is nearly the same thickness as a MacBook Air.

Brydge's optional speakers

Other specs: Brydge is 1.28 pounds, so when attached to an iPad 3, its combined weight is 2.72 pounds. That’s still less than the 2.96 lb. weight of a 13″ MacBook Air. Brydge has a battery that’s charged via a micro USB port, and its makers claim that while specs on the version with speakers are still being determined, the non-speaker version will last “several months” on a single charge. That’s darn impressive.

Brydge's Micro USB power connection

Brydge surpassed its $90,000 goal after just one day on Kickstarter, and there’s well over a month still to go, so this thing is a done deal. Brydge’s makers are treating the Kickstarter project now as a pre-order campaign, and it’s the only way to guarantee yours now. They hope to ship the product around the middle of October. The current minimum pledge is $170, which will get you a Brydge sans speakers. If you want the version with the speakers included, it’ll run you at least $210. There’s no word on what the standard prices will be once it goes on sale, but it’s a given that it’ll be higher than the Kickstarter pledge amounts.

Pebble still holds the all-time record for a Kickstarter fundraising project, standing at $6.6 million in pledges at the time of this writing (with 22 days to go!). Brydge may never quite reach those heights, but it’s already clear that this is going to be one highly coveted accessory.

This is news that can have very serious ramifications because the patent or technology in question is one that is being used on the iPhone.

The ruling, which was promulgated by Administrative Law Judge Thomas Pender, stated that Apple is guilt not just of violating two of Motorola’s patents, it has also encouraged others to violate the patent as well. The decision was based on a lawsuit file last 2010 against Apple. The said lawsuit involved the possible infringement on five patents and the goal is to prevent Apple from using these technologies – which is being used by all of their mobile products (the iPod Touch, iPhone and iPad).

Initial determination of the lawsuit is still partially private pending the redactions of both Apple and Motorola so as to protect proprietary information. Fortunately, it looks like Apple will still come out on top in the end. A German court has already ruled that Apple could probably work around the patent. Also, Qualcomm, which supplies parts to Apple, has a license that could potentially cover Apple’s usage of the patent.

We’ll see what the ITC commissioners will finally decide on August, after it has reviewed the ruling.

Image from smartphoneenvy.com

It’s probably the oddest stylus you’ve ever seen. At first glance, it seems to be a big, black crayon. In reality, the Cosmonaut is the stylus, reborn. Re-imagined from the ground up, it’s an effort to throw out all the rules and create something a whole lot smarter.

Anyone who’s ever tried to draw letters or sketch on an iPad knows that as handy and capable as the human finger is, it’s just not the ideal tool for touchscreen precision. So the marketplace is filled with one stylus after another, each trying to become the artist or idea person’s best friend. There are a lot of great ones, but they’re all built using a similar blueprint — one that imagines a stylus as a virtual pen, pencil, or paintbrush.

The Cosmonaut is different. Its creators at Studio Neat had an epiphany when they realized that writing or drawing on an iPad isn’t like writing on paper or painting on canvas. It’s got more in common with writing on a dry erase marker board, thanks to its smooth surface that erases easily (depending on what app you’re using). So they took a big step back and attempted to come up with an entirely new kind of stylus, one more like a dry erase marker. As they put it, the iPad needs a stylus that’s “fast, simple, and low fidelity.”

The first time you hold the Cosmonaut — after opening the smile-inducing cardboard packaging it comes in — you’ll feel the difference immediately. Its got some real heft to it, feeling very solid and confident in your hand. It has a rubber grip that’s easy to hold and won’t ever slip or slide in your fingers, and its tip is an entirely different kind of rubber. I don’t know exactly what this material is, but it’s soft, durable, and flexible, and slides across the screen smooth as ice.

The tip is sure to be a cause for concern from the skeptical. Believe me, I was too the first time I saw the thing online (before holding a Cosmonaut for myself). The whole thing looks so bulky, and its tip appears to be rather wide, so you’re probably wondering how precise it is. Let me alleviate your fears: it may not be the finest point on the market, but it’s a lot finer than you think, and it was extremely accurate with every app I tried it on.

It’s great with artistic apps like SketchClub and ArtRage, but I think it’s most ideally suited for something like Paper, because it’s all about brainstorming — jotting down ideas and making quick sketches. The developer behind Paper, FiftyThree, recommends using Wacom’s Bamboo stylus, a perfectly fine accessory, but I used the Cosmonaut with Paper for drawing and jotting down ideas, and it felt as if the stylus and the app were made for each other.

It works with any capacitive touchscreen, not just iPad, including iPhone and (grumble grumble) Android devices. You can get it with an aluminum or wood “accent” at its base. The only downside I found is that its rubber grip has a very coarse texture that seems to attract lint, and a lot of it. I kept finding myself wondering why the grip wasn’t made of the same smooth, soft rubber used for the tip. But I assume that wasn’t feasible for some reason — and it certainly wouldn’t provide the same powerful grip.

The Cosmonaut began as a successful Kickstarter project, and now it’s available to buy online for $25. It’s the perfect stylus for artists and handwriters, and I think it’d make a great accessory for the iPad user who’s generally averse to a stylus, as well, because it’s so unique. There’s simply no other stylus that can match the tremendous sense of mass and power that the Cosmonaut conveys — and you can’t understand that feeling until you hold it in your own hand.

I’ve tried many a stylus over the years, but I have a new favorite. It’s fantastic.

Apple HQ lunchtime concert

Want to see even more of Apple’s super-secretive headquarters? We’ve just added over 35 photos to our gallery of the inside of Apple’s Cupertino, California campus, more than doubling the original count.

After the huge response to our Inside Apple HQ article, I set out on another exhaustive search to see if I could find more photos from inside the mothership. With a little creative searching, I was surprised to turned up a huge number of new pics, showing off areas from inside Apple’s headquarters that you’ve never seen before.

Among this batch of photos, you’ll find an entire new section on a part of Apple’s campus called the Executive Briefing Center, a posh, modern area where Apple conducts meetings with its business partners (among other uses). You’ll also see insider looks at Apple employees and the spaces where they work, such as offices and cubicles. We’ve got new pics of a nice Break Room, some cool lunchtime concerts for employees in a large atrium space (including the one above), and even (shh!) a few shots of a computer lab.

To keep things simple, I decided to add all of these new pictures to the original Inside Apple HQ article & gallery, making it the most comprehensive collection of Apple Headquarters ever compiled. Head over there to see more ultra-rare images that Apple probably doesn’t want you to see.

Okay, maybe “never” is a strong word. But it’s a rare thing when I write about a rumor (I don’t even consider it unless it’s a sure thing), because 99% of rumors turn out to be bunk. Like that story about Tim Cook visiting Valve Software last week. You know, that completely non-news piece of “reporting” that never actually happened.

I’ll admit it: I was tempted to write about the Valve “story.” The implications of Tim Cook meeting with Valve’s Gabe Newell were awfully juicy. Just imagining what Apple and Valve might dream up together — a new game console? a partnership between the App Store and Steam? some advanced piece of gaming hardware no one had yet attempted — was, in a word, fun. It was also nonsense.

Co-branding with other major companies for new products is not Apple’s style. Sure, they use plenty of component parts from the likes of Samsung and Sony, but Apple’s products are always Apple products. Apple is also fond of the occasional acquisition, but those transactions are handled very discretely, and only done when a small company out there has some technology or know-how that Apple needs. Valve is neither a small company nor the owners of anything Apple needs.

The whole thing was ridiculous, made even more so by the fact that after it first appeared over at AppleInsider, every Apple blog in the known universe picked it up and regurgitated it, some embellishing it, others adding their own speculation to fuel the flames. (No offense to AI; they get just as much stuff right.) By my count, it was written about on somewhere between two and three hundred websites and blogs. It was stated and restated so many times, it became “news” by default. If your Apple or tech blog didn’t write about a story with potential implications this big, you couldn’t call yourself a real journalist covering Apple news. Right?

Except that everything about this story flies in the face of what responsible journalism is supposed to be. When did the definition of “journalist” or even “blogger” become synonymous with “rumormonger”? It’s one thing to write an opinion piece, or speculative predictions. Professional writers do this all the time, for newspapers, magazines, and yes, blogs. It’s another thing entirely to irresponsibly pass on today’s rumor du jour, particularly when it’s something that common sense says is baloney.

Late yesterday, lo and behold, Valve’s Gabe Newell told the world in no uncertain terms that this whole mess was 100% untrue:

No one here was meeting with Tim Cook or with anybody at Apple that day. I wish we were! We have a long list of things we’d love to see Apple do to support games and gaming better. But no, we didn’t meet with Tim Cook. He seems like a smart guy, but I’ve never actually met him.

I’ll grant that writing about Apple is a complicated business. Apple’s defcon level of secrecy makes it all but impossible to come up with anything to write about at times. Fact-checking and that sort of thing is out the window when it comes to Apple, because they never confirm or deny anything. (Heck, most of the time, they don’t even reply to press inquiries from bloggers.)

When you’re hired as a blogger, typically you’ve got a quota of so many Apple-related posts to write in a day or a week, and you’ve got to fill it with something. Actually coming up with something truly original to write about — something that other Apple blogs haven’t already done — is an extraordinary challenge, particularly considering the limitations of the topic. For a good deal of the time, it simply can’t be done.

But what’s the point of repeating “news” that’s not actually news? It’s offensive, it’s irresponsible, and it degrades the importance of what the media exists for.

So let’s make this official, with a formal statement of intent: As long as I’m the lead blogger at Apple Gazette, we will hold ourselves to a higher standard. Don’t get me wrong, we’re not going to pretend to be something we’re not. We’re not the paragon of stuffy, high-minded journalism or anything, here. We’ll have lots of fun, presenting cool original features and speculating about Apple’s future plans, we’ll write about real news, and we’ll post our discerning app and hardware reviews.

But we’re going to use our brains. We’re going to report about things that actually matter. We’re going to care more about quality than quantity. We’re going to think different. (That’s right, I said it.) And we’re not going to mindlessly repeat every crazy rumor that comes along.

You can get that junk anywhere.

[Image credit]

Apple recently released the official removal tool and a patch that will remove and protect Macbooks from the Flashback malware, it is still installed on many Macs.

In a blog post, computer security company Symantec reported that 140,000 Macs are still infected with Flashback. Even though it is a huge drop compared to the 600,000 Macs that were actually infected by the malware, the remaining infected computers are still more than what was expected, given that Flashback got a lot of media mileage and Apple already released the necessary tools and patches to remove the malware from Macs and protect it from further infection. Additionally, Symantec and other other computer security companies released their own tools to remove Flashback.

According to Symantec, the number of infected Macs may be “declining daily” but the rate by which the malware is being removed is slowing down.  No one knows why this situation is happening although one theory is that despite the publicity surrounding Flashback, there may still be a many Mac owners who haven’t heard of the malware infestation and have not done anything to fix their Macs with the tools and patches.

Flashback has been an insidious malware especially because of its method of infection. A Mac can be infected with the malware just by simply visiting a webpage. Flashback has been touted as the most worst attack on Macs in more than a decade.

Hitting the app store this Wednesday (4.18.12) is a clever new app that puts the tools in your hands to create and sell your own iOS games — right from your iPhone or iPad.

It’s called Sketch Nation Studio, and it is quite possibly the first ever app that gives you the game engine, the tools, and the ability to create your own games, and then sell them in the App Store. And when I say “gives,” I mean that literally: it’s a free download.

It’s stunningly simple to use and requires no knowledge whatsoever of how to write code. It does, however, require some artistic ability, because it’s built around a mechanic where you’re meant to draw all of the objects that will be used in your game. Engineous Games, the developer behind Sketch Nation Studio, imagines that most users will draw in-game objects by hand — either on their iPads or on paper, which can then be scanned into the game using your iDevice’s camera — but I see no reason why enterprising creatives couldn’t import more professional imagery into the game. Even CG renders and the like should be possible, provided they’re your own, proprietary creation.

Once you’ve created your objects, you then use the numerous settings to customize how the game behaves. Sketch Nation takes it from there, and suddenly you’ve got yourself your very own game, which you can play yourself or share with others. A built-in social network facilitates this sharing. You can also upload just the art you’ve created (under an open creative license), and allow other Sketch Nation Studio game makers to use them. Whenever you play a SNS game, and anytime someone downloads your game from the in-app social network, you earn virtual currency, which you can spend to download other games and art.

You can pick from several different game genres, such as platformers or puzzle games, and Engineous Games claims that their app can handle them all. And genres that aren’t yet available are promised for future updates.

Of course, all this free stuff comes with one catch. Not every game built using SNS will be released as a standalone game app in the App Store. But really, would we want them to be? There will no doubt be plenty of half-hearted stinkers (and I think we’d all agree that the App Store already has more than enough crapware as it is), so only the most outstanding and creative games deserve the honor of becoming full-fledged App Store apps. The apps that truly shine, the ones that push the software in new and different directions, will earn the stamp of approval and be published and advertised by Engineous Games, and they’ll split the profits with you. Apple gets 30% of all app sales, so you and Engineous would get 35% each. (Meaning you’d get about $.35 of every sale if your game was priced at $.99.)

Just last week, we learned that Apple is possibly definitely working on an app-making program of their own. But one of their third-party developers have beat them to the punch, at least in part. Sure, the options in Sketch Nation Studio are a lot more limited than what Apple will offer, and it’s exclusively designed for making games, but it’s also going to be a heck of a lot easier to use. And you can even do all the work right on your iPhone or iPad. All indications are that Engineous has been working on creating and fine-tuning this thing for quite a long time, and time will tell whether or not it was worth the effort.

But you have to admit… It’s pretty cool.

Click on an image to be taken to the website it came from, where you can download the full-size, 2048×2048 HD resolution images. (In case you’re wondering: iPad wallpapers have to be square to accommodate both landscape and portrait orientation.)

The artist cleverly used a photo of actual Apple architecture outside of the Amsterdam store to create this one.

Most of these images are CG paintings or renderings. This one is a high-res photo.

Look familiar? It's the same galaxy image used by Apple to promote OS X Mountain Lion.

Sorry, Androiders. Couldn't resist.

Apple Patent Application diagram

Who says only programmers should be able to make great apps? What if creating iOS apps was as easy as creating a WYSIWYG Word doc? A new Apple patent suggests that very idea — an idea so obvious, so genius, it’s going to change everything.

Apple filed a new patent last December (though it was just found by AppleInsider this week) called “Content Configuration for Device Platforms” which is essentially a graphic UI tool for app makers. If Apple makes this thing a reality, anyone will be able to create their own apps and sell them in the App Store — not just programmers.

Earlier this year, Apple did exactly the same thing for interactive ebook makers, with the free release of iBooks Author. It’s easy to imagine a similar release in the near future called something like iOS App Author, maybe, with a simple, intuitive, drag-and-drop interface that anyone can use to create apps. Users wouldn’t even have to look at the underlying code, much less write it. And advanced programmers could use this thing to blow our minds with radical new apps that were too complex to program before. According to the patent filing, the application would use JavaScript to build the code needed to create whatever apps people think up.

So… is Apple really making this thing? It’s a no-brainer! There’s no way Apple is not making it. Of course they are. It’s an Apple kind of idea. The only real surprise is that it took them this long to think of it.

The implications of this are just mind-boggling. Apple would see an overnight explosion of new apps in the App Store, and those most of those apps would hold to a certain standard of quality since Apple would no doubt create templates for developers to use. There’s another big advantage, too: Since this tool would be a Mac OS X application, Apple would be able to keep it current with the latest versions of iOS code, so it would be easier than ever for app developers to keep their iPhone and iPad apps in working order with Apple’s latest goodies. Heck, Apple could even make the thing capable of exporting iOS apps to Mac format, so users could sell their apps in the Mac App Store as well.

It would also be a magic bullet in Apple’s arsenal against Android, since Google doesn’t offer anything like this to Android app makers, either.

Of course, there’s no way of knowing when Apple will formally announce this tool, but it’s one of those really great ideas that Apple’s known for, so I can’t imagine they’d tip their hand by filing for a patent unless they were darn close to having the thing completed. At least, that’s what I hope.

“Pebble” may be a dumb name, but it’s a killer idea: a smartwatch that connects to your iPhone via Bluetooth, uses an e-ink display for long battery life, and even comes with a free SDK so devs can make their own apps for it.

Pebble, currently looking for backers on Kickstarter, sports a 1.26-inch, 144×168 pixel e-ink display, four buttons, vibration, and even an accelerometer. Since it uses a low-powered e-ink display, a single battery charge will last more than 7 days. And it interacts with your iPhone via Bluetooth 2.1.

The idea is built on how iPhone users are constantly pulling out their phones throughout the day to check the time, play music, check email, and so on. The makers of Pebble — a startup called Allerta — came up with the clever idea of putting these functions into a wrist watch that interacts directly with your iPhone. Instead of pulling out the phone, you just look down at your wrist. Allerta expects Pebble to be of greatest use to outdoor users on the go, like runners, cyclists, and golfers, because they can use things like the iPhone’s built-in GPS to track speed, distance, and more, right on their watch.

The smartest thing about the device is its e-ink screen; this is a true masterstroke on Allerta’s part, because it allows for near infinite customization, and eliminates the sunlight glare that iOS users frequently experience outdoors. And since that e-ink screen is nice and roomy, you can download watchfaces as well as apps built just for Pebble that you can download in-app on your iPhone. Pebble will vibrate for notifications, and to dismiss, you just shake your wrist.

Pebble will be available in black, white, red, and one last color that users get to vote on. And don’t let the uncertainty of Kickstarter put you off; Allerta was looking for $100,000 in pledges, and in just over a single day has already received more than one million dollars in pledges. That’s probably due to the discounted price that Allerta’s offering Kickstarter pledges. Pebble is expected to retail for $149, but you can score one by backing it on Kickstarter for as little as $99.

Oh, and if for some strange reason you’re an Android user (seriously, I don’t understand you), Pebble works with the inferior, highly fragmented smartphone OS as well.

By now you’ve already heard of the Flashback botnet that has infected thousands of Macs worldwide. Hopefully, you’re not one of the 600,000 Macs that have been infected. Apple is already hard at work trying to make a tool that will finally stop Flashback in its tracks.

Protecting yourself from Flashback is as simple as downloading the Java patches that Apple has released. Doing this will be enough to keep your Mac safe. But if you are the paranoid type and want to make absolutely sure that Flashback won’t get into your system you can perform an extra step – disable Java on your Mac.

Disabling Java on the Mac is a very easy step and won’t affect your browsing or computing experience. Java is not important for surfing the internet and you probably won’t even notice any difference when surfing online. There are some sites that require Java applets, but you’ll know when it is needed and you need to enable it.

So how do you disable Java on your Mac?

For Safari, all you need to do is to just go over to Preferences. Look for the Security section and simply uncheck Enable Java. You’re now safe from Flashback.

If you’re using Google Chrome, just type “about:plugins” (don’t include the quotation marks) on the address bar. Look for Java and just disable it.

For those who use Firefox, go to Tools and click on Add-ons. This will open the Add-ons Manager. Click on the Plugins tab. Now look for the Java Applet Plug-in and disable it.

You’re now completely Flashback proof!

Found on eBay: an ultra-rare Apple t-shirt that just sold a few weeks ago on eBay that you can’t buy in any store. This t-shirt was the standard gift given to new employees at Apple’s headquarters in Cupertino, California.

I’ve been reading Adam Lashinsky’s Inside Apple lately. It’s a fascinating read, I highly recommend it. I’ll be posting a review of it soonish.

In the book’s second chapter, Lashinsky writes about what happens to new employees at Apple Headquarters on their first day of work:

All new employees attend a half day of orientation, always on a Monday — unless Monday is a holiday. Much of the orientation is standard big-company stuff: a welcome package with stickers saying you’ve joined Apple, HR forms and the like, as well as a t-shirt that says “CLASS OF” with the current year emblazoned on the front.”

Curious what one of these shirts looked like, I hopped online and ran a search to see if I could find an image of one. I turned up just one example, and it was, of all places, on eBay, where a seller going by the handle “bookdude8-half” sold a “Class of 2010″ shirt in late March. In standard Apple style, the charcoal gray shirt sports an understated, simple design, with nothing but a small Apple logo alongside the words, which are written across the chest area. It’s blank on the back, and its collar tag indicates it’s an American Apparel t-shirt.

It’s very much like the free shirts sometimes given away to the first customers at new Apple retail stores grand openings. Those shirts feature the exact same design, only with the name/location of the store instead of the class year.

In case you’re wondering, this incredibly rare shirt sold for a paltry $24.99. Somebody scored a serious bargain.

But buying accessories can be more than the wallet can handle. Just a dock alone can run you $60, if you are lucky. That is probably a big reason why many users are opting to create their own items as part of DIY projects to support the iPhone.
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These 10 are some of the more impressive ones showcased online. Each one can be created on your own, often from items you have around the house or in the garage.

1. Paper iPhone Dock

You don’t even have to make this one yourself. You simply download the PDF, print it out and fold as the instructions tell you to. It can be made from any paper, though using something heavier will be more sturdy. In the comments there is a link from someone who created a template for Cricket Expressions, if you would rather use that kind of a machine.

2. Recycled CD Dock

Everything is digital nowadays, and most of our files are on internal or external hard drives or online storage or cloud readers. So there isn’t much use for CDs anymore, with much more convenient means of backups now available. But that doesn’t mean you don’t have a ton lying around, written on or blank. This is a handy way to turn it into a holder.

3. NES Controller Dock

One of the greatest and geekiest DIY projects for quite some time, this uses an old (probably broken) NES controller for a dock. I like it better than using a whole NES, which is so oversized for such a small gadget. Though, given the capabilities of the Apple product it shows a stark contrast, speaking to how far we have come in personal technology.

4. Rotary Phone iPhone Dock

Speaking of contrast, here is another really cool one. It works by providing a place for your iPhone right in the top of the rotary phone. Fun and very trendy looking – despite the age of the base device – this one has a great look. It would work for any corded model, but the dial instead of buttons gives it something a little extra.

5. Cutlery iPhone Dock

This is just adorable. Not only is it a creative use of items you probably have too many of or can get at a secondhand shop for a few cents each, but it is creatively presented. Of course, you would have to heat the metal in order to shape it correctly, but with the right material it wouldn’t take much heat to get it done.

6. iPhone Stylus Pen

Want to make a cool stylus for your iPhone? Want to know how to do it with hardly any work at all with an item you have at home in just two minutes? Now you can, thanks to an effective tutorial that will show you how to do it.

7. iPhone Cover Design

This is an excellent idea for using contact paper to make a removable cover design for your phone. Of course, you can permanently decorate it in other ways, but this is helpful if you would prefer the ability to change the design later on.

8. iPhone Reception Problem Fix

Technically, the major reception issues of the past models have been fixed or at least addressed. But some people continue to have problems with the iPhone 4, so this is a tutorial on how to fix reception issues yourself by improving your phone’s signal – all for just a dollar!

9. iPhone 4 Stitch Case

You can create your own Neostitch case for the iPhone using a product from Connect Design. It comes with little dots along the surface that can be stitched into a pattern. It only costs $18 for the case, so it is worth it.

10. iPhone Homemade Cases

This is an entire list of amazing and creative cases. From a Spam can to a miniature Sony Playstation, you can find some amazing ideas that can be replicated here on this web page. Of all of the 29 examples, my favorite has to be the “iSketch.”

Conclusion

You don’t have to spend a bundle on iPhone accessories – you already spent enough on the phone. You can find some amazing examples of DIY projects you can do on your own. Just check out the 10 links above.

Tom Chu is the SEO manager at PsPrint, an online printing company specializing in brochure and poster printing among other popular services.