9to5Mac Reviews

I have been using the Otterbox Defender case for the iPhone 4S for a couple of months now and it is one of the most versatile and most protective pieces of phone protection currently on the market. The outer design of the case, what you and others see, is an apparently rubberized material – but do not be deceived by that soft appearance and soft feel. It is a heavy-duty case that does a fantastic job at protecting your phone.

The Defender is a three-layered case. The first layer is an inner plastic shell that you slide your phone into, and this hard, yet lightweight, plastic protects your iPhone 4S from dents. That first layer is augmented with the rubbery layer that adds more protect against drops, but also protects against scratches. Its rubbery material makes sure that when your phone is dropped in any environment it is safe. The third layer is a belt clip that adds some more protection, but its main purpose is to, of course, allow you to wear your iPhone on your belt or clothing…

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(We’re offering a $10 discount/free Parallels MacBook Air contest this week)

If you are not new to Parallels, you will already be familiar with its ability to run Windows in a virtual machine within OS X. You might also be familiar with its Coherence view mode that allows you to run Windows and Mac OS applications side by side, rather than a full-blown Windows 7 in a separate window. However, Parallels Desktop 7 takes it to the next level with some of the deepest Windows/OS X integration yet.

The name of the game for the new Parallels Desktop 7 for Mac is definitely OS X Lion integration. Pretty much every new UI feature incorporated into Lion has been integrated into Parallels, and thus Windows 7. We put the new version to the test with both Windows 7 and Windows 8 developer preview on last year’s iMac with 4GB of RAM.

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UPDATE [Tuesday, December 20, 2011 at 2:06pm ET]: It appears the app had originally slipped past Apple’s censors after all as the company just yanked the program out of the App Store.

A new iOS application called Quickpick hit the App Store (no jailbreak!), and it fills a void that many feel Apple left in their implementation of the iOS 5 Notification Center.

For those unfamiliar, Notification Center is a place on the iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch where a user can view their device notifications along with weather and stocks widgets (iPhone and iPod touch only). Many hoped Apple would add a universal launching feature within the Notification Center, but the company did not do so. Until the time comes (if it ever does), Quickpick fills the void.

Quickpick uses the iOS web-based shortcuts feature to initiate phone calls, text messages, website launching, emailing, and more from the Notification Center.

For example, I have set up a calling shortcut, emailing shortcut, web address shortcut, and a shortcut to open YouTube. Since the application uses native iOS URL scheming, the possibilities are endless. Here are some giant databases (1, 2) of URL schemes you can use, and there are cool examples:

• fb://profile – Open Facebook app to the user’s profile
• twitter://post?message – Open Twitter.app to send a tweet
• fb://friends – Open Facebook app to the friends list
• fb://notifications – Open Facebook app to the notifications list
• fb://feed – Open Facebook app to the News Feed
• itms-apps:// – Open the App Store
• maps:// – Open the Maps app
• sms:// – Open the compose window of the Messages app
• music:// – Go to the currently playing song in the Music app
• youtube:// – Open the YouTube app
• itms-books:// – Open the iBooks app

The aforementioned calling, texting, website launching, and emailing examples do not require a special URL; the app sets those up automatically.

Quickpick is now available as a universal application for the iPad, iPhone, and iPod touch for $0.99. After the break are instructions on how to setup custom URLs in Quickpick:

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[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=kT94Ovn7tIE#!]

Over the past month, I’ve been carrying around a Powerbag backpack from ful.  The idea is pretty straight-forward.  They put a 3000 mA battery inside a backpack complete with adapters for just about any device you’d ever want to charge.  On heavy usage days, I have a mobile charge with me at all times. Instead of taking out all of my devices when I get home, I just plug in the bag.

Read on for the full review…

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Logitech first started producing solar wireless keyboards for PCs earlier this year but didn’t make a Mac version until a few months ago.  The PC version got incredibly solid reviews at Amazon so I thought this would be a good pick up for my Mac workstation when it was released.  As a veteran of Apple’s original Wireless Keyboard, I was sick of dealing with battery and connectivity issues plus I wanted the full layout with numeric keypad, extra function keys extra and full arrows.  I’ve been using it almost exclusively for the past three months.

First, I’ll say that the solar panels make the footprint about 25% bigger than a standard full Apple keyboard.  That can be a hassle if you are cramped for space at your desk.  On the other hand, the keyboard feels a bit more solid, perhaps because of the increased size and weight. Keystrokes are very similar feel to Apple’s standard keyboards and spacing and layout are all but identical.  Logitech adds a power switch and battery tester at the top right.

I got the piano black version because it matches my monitor and my Logitech Mouse (which also works with this USB dongle) but there are 5 colors to choose from.  I imagine the standard “silver” will be the most popular.

As far as the solar is concerned, I never had a single problem with charging or connection.  I have a florescent lit basement office and a workspace with natural light from a shaded back yard and both kept the keyboard charged at all times.  The keyboard usually sits in front of a large 30″ monitor, so that probably helps. But from reviews I’ve read, almost no one has a problem keeping this charged with normal office lighting so I don’t think this is a concern.

There are some tradeoffs for having solar, however…
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RockLive, best known for their popular Mike Tyson Main Event game for the iPhone and iPod touch, is back for another high-profile game partnership. This time, the game studio has teamed up with world-leading soccer player Cristiano Ronaldo for a very fun and addicting game called Heads Up with Cristiano Ronaldo (now available). The game is insanely addictive and combines aspects from puzzle and brick-breaker type games with eye-popping graphics, crisp animations, simple pick-up-and-play game play to make a great gaming experience.

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4mLap2bB0aQ]

The goal of the game – as displayed in our video above – is to knock out as many soccer balls above Ronaldo in order to advance to the next level. Unlike a simple brick-breaker, knocking soccer balls down is nowhere near the full story. In order to clear the soccer balls, two of the same colored soccer balls (whether they be blue, purple, green, or orange) need to be touching. In order for those two soccer balls to disappear, a third ball of the same color needs to be launched by Cristiano Ronaldo. Knocking away all of the balls, though, is still challenging as combinations need to be discovered by the user in order for all the soccer balls to completely disappear. This makes it a fun, pick-up-and-play puzzle-type game…

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[Editor’s note: We got a satchel to review so I asked the style expert of the house do this one]

I’m a big fan of Jill.e’s uncommon (read: not black) camera bags, but the company seems to be expanding its offerings to style-minded users of other technology. I’m talking about women and men who have laptops, iPhones, e-readers and tablets to cart around (sometimes all at once), but who do not find those black polyester padded bags appealing in the least. So it piqued my interest when the company offered to send us a bag to review. As Mrs. 9to5mac and mother of two, I often have gadgets on the go. Even our 3-year-old has his own iPhone. (It’s simcard-free and makes eating out possible. Don’t judge.)

The women’s bag I have been toting for the past week is the laptop satchel, part of the company’s plaid-clad E-GO line.  It’s worked well for many configurations of gadgetry: iPad + Canon SLR, MacBook + Canon SLR, Kindle + iPad. This thing is surprisingly huge, which can be a bad thing for your back, or a good thing when you want to commute with your laptop and ereader in style.Truth be told, the satchel has often doubled as a diaper bag, which is the reality of trying to leave the house with a baby and a preschooler.

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In September, we exclusively leaked the details for the new Jawbone Up fitness band. Fast forward to November, Jawbone, a company used to making Bluetooth headsets, announced the Jawbone Up, a stylish fitness band that tracks your steps, distance traveled, pace and calories burned throughout the day. The band can also track sleeping patterns and energy obtained from food. The Jawbone Up integrates with an iOS app, where users can sync all of their data for detailed reports.

The Jawbone Up is available for $99 on Jawbone’s website and also at Best Buy, Apple, and other retailers. Is the Jawbone Up worth the $99 price tag?  What’s with the recent bricking reports? Read on for our full review:

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Twelve South has sent us their just announced BassJump 2 portable subwoofer. The original BassJump’s focus was to be a subwoofer add-on to your MacBook Pro/Air speakers. The BassJump 2 is more of a software update, than hardware, but we figured we’d check out the full package to tell you if its a peripheral that deserves a spot on your desk.

The BassJump 2 is available for $69, including free shipping and the new software. BassJump 2 ships with beautiful packaging and includes the subwoofer inside, a USB cord, and a carrying case for when you need to take your BassJump on the go. So how does it compare to the Macbook Air’s “internal bass” and is it worth the $69 price tag? Read on after the break for the full review, gallery, and video.

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I’ve been using a new iPhone application called Reprise as my main iPhone music player for the past few weeks, and it makes a fantastic replacement for certain iPhone music listeners. In 2005, Apple took the concept of song shuffling to their biggest extreme yet with the iPod shuffle. An iPod dedicating to shuffling your music. That music player still exists, but the iPod line in general has been caniblized by the iPhone and iPod touch and their iOS operating system. With the iPod shuffle even existing, there is a clear market for music shuffling. Read on for the full review…

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This is a sponsored post

Until recently, I merely thought of Hitachi as the company that builds the OEM hard drives that are found in some Apple and other high end PCs.  It turns out that Hitachi makes very high quality enclosures for those same hard drives that companies like Apple demand for their machines.

Hitachi’s drives that range from the G-Drive portable hard drives (which I reviewed earlier this year, above) to the newer G-Speed for high end A/V professionals.  Take for instance the G-Speed FC XL, shown below:

The SAN Ready G-SPEED FC XL offers industry leading Fibre Channel performance and easily supports multi-stream ProRes, uncompressed HD and 2K Film video editing work flows. A 16-drive G-SPEED FC XL connected to a dual-channel 4 Gbit Fibre Channel host bus adapter will pump out over 550 MB/second to support the most demanding post production environments.  Upgrade mini SAS model,  back panel below, and expect up to 800MB per second.   That’s uncompressed 60 frames 1080P with room to spare and virtually unlimited space for drives with its stacking functionality.

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For more info, check out…www.g-technology.com/hellbent

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• Hitachi LifeStudio 2TB USB External Hard Drive for $85 + free shipping (9to5toys.com)

The iPad application Take One – Movie Clapper is a great solution for anyone into film or making movies that wants a cheap and simple way to keep track takes, which assists in keeping filmed video and audio in synchronization. The major difference between Take One and its competitors is price and ease of use. Take One costs $2.99, compared to its $9.99 and $24.99 competitors – but offers an easy-to-use solution and all the necessary features one would expect from a Movie Clapper.

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There’s not much to say about the new Western Digital My Book Studio 3TB hard drive.  It looks quite nice and would go nicely with a Mac Pro or any aluminum Mac. The new MyBook Studio, unlike the previous My Book LX models, doesn’t have the LED display which showed free space and other nice specs without the need to dig it up from the connected computer.  It does, however, have a quiet, cool running green hard drive with a fan-less enclosure. But the $150/$200/$250 for 1TB/2TB/3TB models, it isn’t going to hit 9to5toys.com anytime soon.

In fact, the same 3TB Western Digital Internal Green Drive resides in a USB-only package for only $130.  Because this is a green drive, the extra speed that Firewire provides isn’t as noticeable as with a high performance drive.  See speed tests and more images below.
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Update: October 26th: Seagate just released a firmware update

The Post PC age is upon us and we’ve now got new iOS devices in all shapes and sizes in our homes.  But getting and sharing media to all of these many devices starts to become a chore, especially when on the go.  One solution is moving media into an Internet-connected NAS or the (i)Cloud.

Unfortunately, pulling that data down to your iDevice when you are on the go, especially high quality video, can be an expensive burden on your wireless data plan.  Just a few movies can put you over your monthly data limit.  And that’s where you have a speedy Internet connection that can handle a full screen movie.  And what do you do when there is no signal (camping?) at all?

Seagate thinks they have a solution to this problem with their new $200 Goflex Satellite 500GB hard drive.  Read on for the full review:

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We’ve been testing out a prototype version of the Hive Dock for iPhone for the last few days and here’s our review and overview of the product. For those unfamiliar, the Hive Dock is a dock for the iPhone 4 that provides the phone with clearer audio output and uses a magnifying plate to provide a 4X zoom for anything your iPhone displays on its screen. The product is actually pretty slick for movie watchers and the audio actually does sound crisper than iPhone 4 audio without the dock.

The iPhone can sit in either portrait or landscape and is incredibly easy to place in the Hive Dock. You just drop your iPhone 4 into the fitting slot with the device’s speaker in the speaker placement portion of the slot. The home button is always open when the iPhone is in landscape orientation and there is an opening in the Hive Dock if you want to use the device in portrait mode. The Hive Dock is not only for movie watchers, but does wonders for those who want to type without squinting. Using an iPhone text editor, the Hive Dock, and a wireless keyboard is a great expierience.

The magnification portion actually works great and is perfect for movies, games, web browsing, and really anything else you would use your iPhone for. One of the great parts about the dock is that it enhances your audio and iPhone screen without any electricity. The dock itself is also very light – so it’s very easy to carry and travel with. The iPhone is also still easy to use when in the dock, just wrap your hands around the magnification plate. Another plus for portablity is that the magnification lens actually can be stored in the bottom of the Hive Dock. The Hive Dock we tested is a prototype unit and the actually unit will be thinner and feature feet on the bottom for rotation. If you have any questions we’ll answer them in the comments.

You can support and pre-order the Hive Dock through Kickstarter.

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Ever since I reviewed MacPhun’s FX Photo Studio for iOS, its insane amount of superior effects, the eye-catching interface taking full advantage of iPad’s canvas and the overall polish have been a revelation. Suffice to say that I walked away wanting that photo editing experience on my Mac. The opportunity is clearly there: Excluding big-name suites and a few established programs from indies, quality yet affordable photo editing programs are few and far between on the Mac. That being said, I set out to review FX Photo Studio on an aging 2.4GHz unibody Mac mini with 2GB RAM running Snow Leopard.

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We’ve been testing out Otterbox’s Reflex Series case for the iPhone 4 for the past few weeks and it’s a fantastic offering for anyone who wants great iPhone protection in a slim and light package. The Reflex is a slider case that comes with two parts: put your iPhone 4 in the bottom piece and then slide on the top piece. The case leaves room for all iPhone 4 access points including the volume rocker, silent/ringer switch, earphone jack, dock connector, speaker, and microphone. The case is made of very tough plastic, but is thin and light enough to fit in your pocket, bag, purse, etc…

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The game that knocked Angry Birds and Tiny Wings off of the top slots in the App Store games chart.

What is this with the App Store and bird-themed games, huh? First Angry Birds sat atop the App Store games charts, then Tiny Wings came along and now we have Air Penguing, a Gamevil-branded feather-themed time killer. It’s currently #1 paid app in the App Store games category in the US, Germany, Austria, Hungary and Russia. I just bought it and played it for like half an hour. Here are my initial impressions…

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We’ve been testing out Twelve South’s Magic Trackpad + Apple wireless keyboard unifier for some time now and in short: it’s awesome. The Magic Wand works as advertised and is incrediblity simple to set up and start using. Simply slide your wireless keyboard and magic trackpad into the aluminum bar, push in the piece of supplied rubber to keep both input devices in place, and you’re set.

Many users of the wireless keyboard and trackpad with their Mac desktops have long noticed that the trackpad tends to slide far from the keyboard. In my experience it is just plain annoying. Twelve South’s Magic Trackpad works to defeat the issue and does in a fairly-inexpensive and intuitive manner. The product also works for anyone as you can slide the trackpad or keyboard into any side of bar, so it’s perfect whether you are right or left handed…

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I remember spec’ing out an Apple XRAID a few years ago which I filled with 14 400GB hard drives. At the time, it was the biggest and fastest volume I’d ever built. After putting those drives in RAID 5, I had around 2.4TBs per side. If memory serves me correctly, that rig cost around $15,000.

That was then.

This week, Western Digital sent us 6TB in its latest MyBook Studio Edition II for review.  It retails for about $549.  Obviously, this isn’t a professional rig like XRAIDs and the like, but if you want hard drive that is:

1. Super energy efficient
2. Quiet
3. Moderately speedy
4. Easy to setup
5. Around $500

…this external drive may be what you are after.  Read on for the details.

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We’re getting this question a lot so I thought I’d put together a really quick HowTo guide.

0. HomeSharing is the new feature in iOS 4.3/iTunes 10.2 that allows you to watch videos on your computer with your iOS devices.  Download and install iOS 4.3 on your iOS device and iTunes 10.2 on your Mac if you haven’t already.  Make sure your iOS device and your Mac are on the same Wifi network.

1. In iTunes 10.2.1, go to Advanced and click on “Turn on Home Sharing”

Then put in your iTunes Creds (Apple ID)…
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