Reviews

They say you can never have too much money. I don't know if that's true. Shakespeare had King Richard shouting "A horse, a horse! My kingdom for a horse!" I don't ride a horse, but I do have a couple of old convertibles that have had the battery die on occassion, so I can relate. All the money in the world won't help you if your car and phone batteries are dead and nobody is around to help. That's why I was very excited to see the JumperPack mini from Cyntur.

IK Multimedia made the iRig 2 ($39.99) product available last week and sent us a review unit to test out. The iRig is a guitar interface that allows you to process signals from any electric guitar and listen to the output on your headphones. It now can send signal out to an amp or PA. I tested the iRig with several of my guitars running into a Line 6 Flextone and a Roland guitar amp, as well as with headphones. I also tested it up against the iRig Pro HD model, and have to say it performed nearly on a par with the fancier iRig model!

This is the first Indie Project Corner post, a regular feature we will be undertaking to showcase noteworthy indie development efforts (mostly iPhone-related). It's not easy to get a crowdfunded product off the ground, as any who have done it will tell you, and iPhone Life wants to help by interviewing entrepreneurs and getting the skinny on what makes their products the best. In this first edition, we interview Gene Aikens of The Power Company, maker of the Smart Card, and the iPocket Drive. Gene sent us an early review sample of the iPocket Drive to check out. If you are looking for an alternative to network or cloud-connected storage, you will want an iPocket Drive! Gene shares some great insights in part one of this edition.

This is the follow-up post to our first edition of the Indie Project corner, where we talk to indie product developers who are crowdfunding and implementing a new project related to iOS. In Part 1, we interviewed Gene Aikens of the Power Company on the early success involving his recent campaigns on Indiegogo. In this edition, we are following that up with a product review of his iPocket Drive.

Out of all of the thousands of mobile games available to gamers, few if any have generated a buzz in the core gaming community like Vainglory has. Vainglory is an unapologetically core game, built from the ground up for the mobile touchscreen platform. I had the opportunity recently to sit down and chat with Vainglory's COO Kristian "EdTheShred" Segerstrale and former pro League of Legends player George "Zekent" Liu who now serves as Vainglory's Video Community Manager. What follows is an essential and informative read for anyone who is a core gamer in this day and age where touchscreens are increasingly becoming the dominant gaming platform.

I saw Fugoo's speakers at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. Recently, Fugoo gave me the opportunity to try its Sport Wireless Speakers ($199). Fugoo offers a wide variety of speakers, with different materials, textures, colors and capabilities, but they all have one thing in common. They are substantial both in weight and sound quality. And these speakers are waterproof, not just splash proof. At CES, Fugoo drenched their speakers in water and they kept on rocking!

I conducted an extensive review of three headphones. This review includes aesthetics, features, and sound. Like many areas of modern electronics, hundreds of headphones exist in a seemingly infinite variety of shapes and sizes. The most important element though, is good fit and good sound. Beyond that, nothing else really matters.

The zBoost SOHO boosts cell phone signals for both voice and text for all of the major cell phone providers. The zBoost cell phone booster consists of two main parts: the base unit that resides indoors and the external antenna which resides on the roof of your home. Though installation wasn't plug in and go, we are thrilled that we can now disconnect our landline and finally use our cell phones in our home.

Have you ever tried to listen to music or watch a movie with a pair of headphones that only work on one side? It's pretty miserable, isn't it? (Every parent who has ever made the mistake of sharing his headphones with his kids is nodding sadly right now.) Obviously it's time for you to order a new, higher quality pair of headphones and hide them from your destructive offspring. In the meantime, you can enjoy the full audio experience by switching your iPhone or iPad's audio settings to mono.

Vainglory (free) is a new iOS game that has taken the world of mobile gaming by storm. Developed by Super Evil Megacorp, Vainglory belongs to the Multiplayer Online Battle Arena genre—MOBA in gaming vernacular. Recently I got to chat with Kristian Segerstrale, COO & Executive Director at Super Evil Megacorp. We had a great conversation and I even got to play a few rounds of Vainglory with pro gamer turned Vainglory Video Community Manager, George “Zekent” Liu, and Super Evil Megacorp's Director of Marketing and Communications, Heini Vesander. I'm even more excited than ever to see what the future holds for this game, a game that is not only the pinnacle of awesome, but is also poised to revolutionize the way core gamers perceive and interact with modern games on the iOS platform. The following transcription is a must-read for any core gamer, as we delve into the creation of what is being hailed as one of the best new iOS games, and the only MOBA perfected for touchscreens.

I've been using an iDevice as my primary means of game consumption since the introduction of the iPhone in 2007. Since that time, I've see the landscape of iOS gaming change dramatically, but perhaps never more significantly than this year with the introduction of the iPhone 6 Plus alongside Apple's A8 chip and Metal interface. If Apple's iOS devices presented a challenge to consoles and dedicated handhelds alike before now, I would consider the iPhone 6 Plus the beginning of the end for the age of console-dominated gaming. 

The following dozen games are either ports of popular console titles, or iOS games that shine in their own right as being console quality. To be included on this list, a game must either be a new release as of this year, or it must have been updated recently to support iOS 8 and Apple's advanced new programming interface known as Metal. With the introduction of iOS 8 and Metal, alongside the powerful A8 and A8X processors that are inside the latest iDevices, Apple has leveled the virtual playing field. It would be ignoring the facts for a core console gamer to say that iOS can't support video games that are on par with console or PC titles, especially if you indulge in iOS' streaming capabilities that allow us to play these great games on a large screened TV. With the graphic capabilities of iOS 8 and the exciting titles currently available for the platform, it's easy to see how Apple's iOS is leading the way in a mobile eSport industry that is on track to bring in a revenue of over 24 billion dollars this year, and set to overtake PC and console gaming's revenue in 2015. As the holidays are upon us again, don't forget that you can gift any of these apps to your favorite gamer via the App Store.

 

After scouring the sprawling sea of tech-gear that is CES, here's a compilation of the best of the adventure-proof, rugged gear that was on display. While not all of the items featured here are available for order quite yet, all of these products are expected to start shipping by Q2 this year, sometime around March most likely. Read on after the break to see what's coming in the world of heavy-duty gear for our iOS devices.

The best of the CES show is often not on the beaten path. One key vendor we make sure to lock in on every year is the Imagination Technologies meeting rooms in South Hall at CES 2015 (way back in the corner). These guys are one of a select number of innovators that design the low-power, system on chip (SoC) technology needed to run our smart homes, smart cars, and smart mobile devices.

Jabra has been at the forefront of noise cancelling Bluetooth headsets since the early days of the iPhone. Their most recent headset, the Jabra Stealth, is the culmination of years of experience in a remarkably tiny, comfortable earpiece. I don't normally like Bluetooth headsets because they interfere with my glasses or are uncomfortable inside my ear.

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