ColcaSac Zagora iPad 2/3 Sleeve Impressions
For the last week, I’ve had the chance to try out a new iPad case, known as the ColcaSac Zagora for the iPad 2 and the new iPad (which was just released on Friday here in the UK). The first thing that hit me was the packaging, I mean how often is it that you receive a case packaged as so:
This left quite an impression on me I must say. Straight away, I did a little bit of research to find out about the company. ColcaSac aim to create “healthy products” with a “minimalistic design” according to their website. I also found the following there:
“We use hemp, bamboo, and repurposed jute–materials that will naturally biodegrade and use less resources and do less damage than neoprene or cotton sleeves. We also use recycled packaging that is also both recyclable and biodegradable. We even use our scraps to make other sleeves. We know that more can be done, and are working to improve our process.”
This is quite interesting, I mean how often do you find cases that are considerate towards being biodegradable? It’s certainly a noble intention and it’s good to see it’s something that is being considered when manufacturing iPad cases. Hopefully it’ll grow to other devices (phones and laptops anyone?).
Now, about the actual case.
First off, it’s definitely not a case for the first generation iPad. The first generation iPad has slightly bigger dimensions, and therefore will not fit smoothly at all into this case. This case is a snug-fit on the iPad 2 and the new iPad.
It certainly provides adequate protection and has plenty of padding on the case without making it feel bulky. Previously, I was using a normal sleeve that you can find at pretty much any tech type shop. This however gives more padding that those cases, and also has a little sleeve on the front to carry other items in. Realistically, that will be little pieces of paper or cards, as it’s not a very big section on the case.
As for the main compartment, using what I think is cotton, there is plenty of soft padding and cushioning for your iPad. Added to this is a little velcro flap, which doesn’t make much of a sound when being opened somehow. I think this has been accomplished by not having as sturdy a velcro patch as usual (hard to describe, but hopefully makes sense if you see it in person).
On the whole, it’s quite a nice case to use and carry your iPad around in. It definitely provides enough protection, and feels like a luxurious case rather than just an essential. It’s also a nice feature that it’s biodegradable and made as an eco-friendly product.
With the new iPad now out, you can find plenty of iPad 3 cases and iPad 3 accessories over at GearZap, including the very ColcaSac case that I’ve been using.
Pocket Boom Impressions
I was given the chance to try out the “Pocket Boom”, a little device that allows you to turn any hollow object into a set of speakers.
To me, the device seemed quite gimmicky at first. There are plenty of portable speakers out there for cheap. You can even find them at newsagents now days at cheap as £5! However, it does depend on the quality you want and what you want to use it for.
First off, the sound quality you’ll get from the Pocket Boom is nothing special. It’s pretty standard, however the way it projects its sound is pretty interesting. The Pocket Boom has a little vibration part that can be stuck to a hollow object. By turning sound to vibration, it projects the sound through the hollow object. To me, this only gives an appearance of giving louder volume, however in reality it’s only because the sound is coming from a surface area bigger than normal speakers on devices like laptops and mobile phones.
The device comes with the Pocket Boom unit, a USB cable to power it with (it can also be powered using 2 AAA batteries), and an audio extension cable. It also comes with replacement sticker pads to stick on to other objects. It doesn’t use normal adhesive, but rather similar adhesive to that of screen protectors which can be removed and re-attached to objects.
On the whole, it’s definitely an interesting device. However, usually retailing at £20, it may not be the purchase to go for as you’re main portable speakers. There are plenty of other proven alternatives out there. As a gimmicky type device, that’s certainly small, it’s pretty cool to try out.
Finally, on a completely unrelated note, you can find iPad accessories and Galaxy Note cases over at GearZap. I’ve been told they have new stock, so definitely worth checking out.
The new iPad
You may well have heard about Apple’s latest announcement – the new iPad. It was formerly unveiled in San Francisco last night by new Apple Chief Executive Tim Cook, at 6.15pm GMT.
The iPad announcement brings the end to the traditional long series of rumours regarding the screen size, the screen quality, buttons (or no buttons), and a whole load more.
Running an A5X processor, the 3rd Generation iPad is running a dual-core processor with quad-core graphics. This leaves is slightly lagging behind some of its competitors when it comes to processor speed, although the retail price of £390 should keep it more than just highly competitive.
The whopping 2048 x 1536 resolution, retina display is by far the biggest unique selling point of the new iPad, making it the highest quality tablet screen on the market – it is much higher than the resolution to be defined as HD.
Also new to the iPad is a 5-megapixel camera which is almost the best around when it comes to tablets, although is beaten by that of the Asus Transformer Prime. It can record video in 1080p HD and has a unique stabilisation feature where a shaky hand won’t lead to shaky videos.
A great new feature on the iPad is the microphone, tying in with the Siri release on the iPhone 4S, which allows you to dictate rather than type – with a microphone button now taking its place on the iPad keyboard.
One thing that didn’t change as much as was expected is the size and shape, with an almost identical shape that is just slightly thicker (0.6mm) and also a little bit heavier. This makes room for the ever-so-slightly-larger new parts inside the new iPad.
Also announced on the night, prior to the new iPad, was a new Apple TV which keeps its price at $99.
As always, you can expect to find new iPad accessories such as a new iPad case range at GearZap.com.
Sociable App for iOS Impressions
I always like using lightweight utility applications on my iPhone. One of them that I used to use was called Duo+, a 69p app which allows you to update both your Facebook and Twitter statuses together. It also allows the use of location, but besides that not much. While it’s a nice lightweight app, it had a fair few bugs. Quite often it wouldn’t connect to Facebook, and when it did, it rarely allowed an update. The developer has tried fixing it, but it seems the latest fix now never allows me to update Facebook statuses, making it pretty useful. It was fairly unreliable before anyway.
The Sociable app effectively does the same thing, allowing you to update both your Facebook and Twitter statuses together. However, it has a great polish about it. The wooden effect given certainly gives a nice feel when using the app and makes it feel a lot more professional than Duo+, which quite frankly appears like a hastily put together knock-off in comparison.
The added advantage with Sociable is that on top of location, it allows you to add photos to status updates. This is great for keeping both Facebook and Twitter up to date with the same status and also photo that you may have taken. So far, I’ve found it pretty reliable, so I’m pretty happy with it and it’s worth the 69p over Duo+. If only I could get refunds for apps!
P.S. It also allows you to update LinkedIn and Tumblr statuses, but I don’t really use them.
Deus Ex: Human Revolution Bliss!
After a bit of a break, I’ve got back to playing Deus Ex: Human Revolution. I’ve been meaning to play it for a long time, but due to a lot of unforeseen circumstances, such as being ill, I wasn’t able to. 
It’s probably been one of my most anticipated games of the year, and that says something with games like Skyrim, Battlefield 3 and Modern Warfare 3 coming out this year!
So after finally picking back up on it, I have to say that I’m totally hooked. Without giving away any spoilers, I got up to I’d say halfway through the game somewhere in Shanghai. Since then, I really haven’t been able to put it down! The plot moves along very nicely at a great pace – not bombarding you with too many events but not going slow enough to get you bored. It’s just right.
On top of that, the side quests have been great throughout this game. Any opportunity I get to explore around, speak to every possible person in the game world and just loot everything, I take it. The citizens of Detroit must really be pissed off at me by now! Also the employees of Tai Yong Medical may find some cash missing when they return to their offices! Certainly made me a rich man (you’ll see what I mean once you get up to that bit in the game if you haven’t already).
I haven’t quite finished it yet, but I can tell I’m in the final stint. My only worry is that the conclusion will be lacklustre, and I’m still contemplating whether the DLC is worth a purchase just for more Deus Ex fun. I guess I’ll have to wait and see.
Forever Drive for iOS Opinions
I recently saw a game called Forever Drive for download on the App Store for free, and last I checked it was still free. It’s an absolutely gorgeous little racing game.
I wasn’t expecting much since there are plenty of games available on iOS that aren’t too great. However, the screenshots for this game really got me interested. It had a feel of Rez for PlayStation 2, or Beat Hazard for PC.
As you drive through different tracks, the colours change. It has a very neon-esque look and feel, and is very simple to play. You can turn left and right using buttons on each respective side of the screen. There’s also a brake pedal beneath each of those buttons, so you can choose which to use to brake. Accelerating is done automatically.
I believe there are in-app purchases, however I’ve been more than happy to just play through the normal mode and enjoy each track. You collect stars, overtake vehicles and drive in special highlighted lanes for points.
Crashing into the side wall or another vehicle breaks your combo of points and slows down your vehicle. Since you must make checkpoints before a time limit, it’s common sense to avoid them, otherwise you won’t progress far.
Forever Drive is a lovely little game. I’m not sure it’ll remain a free app for long, so it’s well worth giving it a download soon. There’s even a mode for building your own tracks, and you unlock all sorts of items for them along the way, however I haven’t dived into that just yet. I’m having too much fun racing as it is!
iOS 5 Upgrade for iOS devices
Apple has released it’s latest iOS version for its mobile devices, namely iPhones and iPads. It’s compatible with iPhone 3GS and up, and both iPad 1 and 2. I went ahead and gave it a try last time, but it took absolutely ages to install. I think the installation process was fine, but restoring everything on to the device took years!
When the update finally did finish, my first thoughts were, why are they so many new icons? Then I realised that Apple got rid off the one iPod icon and split it into two separate Music and Videos icons. Along with that is the Newsstand (where you can supposedly download magazines straight into, however each time I try download something it downloads it as a new app – maybe there aren’t many compatible magazines as of yet?) and Reminders app.
This means that there are a greater number of default icons than ever before, i.e. apps created by Apple that you can’t remove from the device. It’s started to get too clustered, and I would love to be able to remove stuff like Newsstand, Game Center, Voice Memos, etc. from the device since I never use them. It’s just cluttering up my device, and something like Newsstand can’t even be hidden away in a folder since it’s a folder of its own!
Anyway, that’s my negative views so far, what about the positive ones? There’s one huge reason why I wanted to upgrade so quickly, and that is Notification Center. It’s about time that Apple sorted out its notifications on iOS devices, since the clunky pop ups were intrusive and annoying. Now they appear in a drawer that you can slide out from the top of the screen (pretty much same as Android devices) and view notifications there. They also list on the lock screen, meaning you’re not only going to see the latest pop up on your lock screen.
Besides that, there’s also iMessages which works like a charm. It somehow figures out who has iOS 5 and automatically sends them iMessages as opposed to normal SMS messages. It works like a charm, without the need for pin numbers to exchange or anything of the sort. It just works!
Those are my initial opinions for now, I’m sure more stuff will crop up. Most of the apps have been working fine with it except PingChat, which seems to crash any time I try to write a message, rendering it useless!
Hard Reset Demo Opinions
Finally got around to play Flying Wild Hog’s game called Hard Reset, which has been in development for quite a while. It’s essentially an old school FPS game based in a cyberpunk world. I have to say, it’s been a while since I’ve played a game which is literally just a shooter. There aren’t many puzzles, and when there are, it’s very much like the old Quake style puzzles of finding some button to open up the path, i.e. not very challenging.
Graphically this game is gorgeous. It ran like a charm on my Alienware M11x with no slowdowns at all even when there was a lot of action going on. It has a unique feel to it, and creates a good atmospheric feel with the dim lighting, tall futuristic buildings and rather props placed around each area you pass through. For good measure, there are plenty of things for you to shoot that will blow up, which definitely spice things up in battle.
The enemies are basically machines killing humans, so it’s your job to put a stop to them. There isn’t much point in taking an interest in the story, since it’s all about the shooting here, hence old school FPS. You learn early on that the best way, and usually most exciting, is to shoot things in the environment that will blow up or electrocute enemies nearby. It gives an extremely rewarding feeling, especially when you see a whole group of them running your way and then blow up!
I only played the demo but I’m very tempted to buy the full game, only after I’ve got my worth in Deus Ex: Human Revolution though! If you’re looking for a very fun old school type FPS game, then look no further. It’s stunning graphically and I love to cyberpunk look and feel. If only it was an RPG in that world!
“iHub” USB Hub
Hmm, I needed a USB hub, and found something called the iHub on eBay. Now, I know Apple don’t do a USB hub like this themselves, so I was intrigued to check it out. I went ahead and placed an order, knowing that quite possibly my purchase may be blocked or I’ll receive something completely different. Low and behold, this is what I got.
It actually works like a perfectly normal USB hub! I haven’t been able to check the speed and obviously haven’t used it for long periods of time yet, since I haven’t had it long, but for those who want a nice looking (fake) USB hub that has Apple written all over it, here you go!
Caspian Border map available on Battlefield 3 Beta
The Battlefield 3 beta has been open for a little while now, and has now added the huge Caspian Border map. I gave it a go just a bit ago, but seems that the servers are being hammered since I was disconnected a few times as well as experiencing quite a bit of lag. Still, it’s definitely a humongous map!
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