Consider this a cautionary tale against trying to fix your iPod or your iPhone yourself. Recently, a guy over in Sussex (like the European Sussex) tried fixing it. And he’d checked online, and discovered that the repair process was not what you’d call difficult. So he started in, and got the first couple of screws out, but discovered that that glass face plate wasn’t exactly the easiest removal in the instruction set. So he goes at it with a knife.
You can about imagine what happens here, but let’s just say: explosion, glass shards, eye.
You can connect the dots from there.
So he got himself to the hospital and discovered he’d damaged the protective layer covering his eye. Now he’ll be wearing an eye patch for the next several weeks, and imagine the shock and horror he felt upon coming home and seeing the shattered iPhone, right where he left it.
The iPhone officially went on sale yesterday from China’s Unicom. While they lacked the same frenzied fans as the US – that was during the initial Gen 1 launch – a few lines did form leaving queued customers in the rain for up to 7 hours. The first owner of an official iPhone in China – they’ve long been available on the gray market – is Zhi Xianzhong.
Price for the handset with a 3 year, yes 3 year contract starts at 4,999 yuan (about $732) for the 8GB 3G model or 6,999 yuan (about $1,025) for the 32GB 3GS version. Oh, and that price doesn’t even include WiFi, which has been left out of the handsets due to government oversight.
The success of the Chinese iPhone will be relatively limited given the price which will drop, but probably never enough for the majority to afford it.
If the ReNu solar powered iPhone docking system piqued your interest then listen up, because Regen is at it again. The REVERB is a giant speaker that stands 35-inches high and can be powered by, you guessed it, the sun’s solar rays. Up top is an Apple 30-pin dock, 2x USB ports, 1x USB input for charging the unit and a 4-inch LCD to display all the track info your eco heart desires. Speaker wise were looking at a set of stereo drivers and a 6-inch subwoofer. A full charge in direct sunlight outdoors takes 20 hours, while inside takes 40, which produces 4.5 hours of play time at full volume or 12 hours at ‘normal’ volume.
The REVERB will be available this coming April for a mere $2,299, but you can preorder one now for $500 down.
While I’ll reserve my judement on sound quality until I get my hands on one of what Vestalife calls their ‘iconic’ speakers system, their latest line of bug inspired speaker systems do posses an attractive facade that will get most performing a head turn.
Still trying to figure out how to make your iPhone a tad greener and all the while not cluttering up your desktop? The Regen’s Renu solar panel is a modular system that charges on its own and when the time comes, can be placed in one of their two docks to charge up the iPhone. That means you don’t have to expose your iPhone to direct sunlight, potentially harming the phone’s fragile components.
Renu currently offers an iPod dock, which just does the usual or you can opt for the more expensive but heavier featured Sound Dock, which includes a set of speakers and a slot for Regen’s Renu solar panel, providing up to 8 hours of sound or power to your iProduct of choice. The Renu solar panel takes about 3.7 hours to charge in direct sunlight outside and 7.3 hours of ‘direct sunlight indoors’. …Continue reading: Regen’s Renu iPod Dock Is My Favorite Solar Panel Gadget To Date
Many people live with discomfort. Many people wear shitty earphones that don’t fit. YurBuds are out to change that. Their not saying ditch your crappy earphones, but instead send them pictures of your ears and they’ll make you a pair of custom adapters to fit over your poorly designed white ones.
For only $20, YurBuds will scan the pictures of your ears and give you the most approximate custom molding that type of money can by assuring you a better fit.
For most people, the earphones that come with the gadget are usually good enough and they are often too ignorant to know any better. Let’s hope they care about this specialty service as anybody in the know has already ditched the white ones completely.
For those of you that subscribe to the NetFlix-esque video game rental service, the GameFly GameCenter app is now available for free in the App Store. More than just access to your queue, the GameFly GameCenter has a news feed, tons of user reviews, and instantly accessible “most popular” games list.
I’d go as far as to say that that even if you don’t belong to GameFly (it’s hard to get new releases but buying used games is the cheapest around), the app is still a cool alternative to the IGN app in terms of user reviews and news.
Talk about useless crap. I mean, whoa I totally need this. I suppose if you were doing a short film about this gadget or the wonders of iPhone video, then it would maybe be cool? The whole point of shooting video on your phone is to not need something like this.
Priced at $300 I would have trouble holding back malicious laughter if I saw some dude toting this thing around pretending to be professional. I beg to be proven otherwise as I am continuously amazed at consumerism.
It’s as if we need further proof that the iPhone can do just about anything.
Using the same platform used in the 2007 Darpa Urban Challenge (an autonomous vehicle system) the Spirit of Berlin team built an iPhone app that allows a minivan to be controlled right from Apple’s smartphone over WiFi. A forward facing camera transmits real time video to the phone’s screen and a set of buttons control the gas, break and steering wheel, which is tied into the phone’s accelerometer.
While I wouldn’t hurdle myself into shotgun for the proverbial ghost ride, I’d love to give this thing a whirl.
TomTom’s Car Kit for the iPhone is now available for purchase at Apple’s online store. But before you buy, consider the hefty price tag: $119.95. And that doesn’t even include the necessary iPhone app, which costs an additional $99. iLounge gave it a rating of ‘C’, which means it’s equitable in quality to the last US President, and that’s being generous, in the case of the President that is.
