Categories / Apple

Dark Energy Reservoir

  • February 28, 2014
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Dark Energy Reservoir is a powerful external USB battery pack in a sleek design – $129

Our mobile devices make our life so much easier and more fun, but without power they’re totally worthless. When at home or at work most of us are able to keep our phones and tablets charged up, but power isn’t always as easy to find while on the go. You can always bring a wall charger and hope to find an outlet somewhere but why not bring your own little box of power along instead?

The Dark Energy Reservoir isn’t the first device of it’s kind but it’s one of the best portable battery packs I have come across so far, and also one that I use myself on a daily basis. It launched as a Kickstarter project in early 2013 but it is now available to anyone to purchase. The Reservoir has a very nice and slim design, excellent build quality and it can recharge an iPhone 5S almost five times in a row.

I keep one lightning cable (to charge my iPhone and iPad mini), one mini-USB cable (to charge the battery pack itself) and a Dark Energy Reservoir in my bag at all times. This little device has been a blessing to me while using my phone as a personal WiFi hotspot at coffee shops, on long flights and on hikes far away from power outlets.

➤ Get Dark Energy Reservoir now

Photo by: Pixels & Objects

COBURNS iPad Stands

  • February 19, 2014
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COBURNS are a minimal and elegant pair of wooden iPad stands – $25

There are many iPad cases with built-in stands available but most of them add too much bulk and aren’t always that great to use. I prefer to keep my iPad in a slim leather sleeve for protection and then take it out when I want to use it. This works great at most times but a stand can be very useful in certain situations. Enter COBURNS, two wooden legs that grip on to your iPad and lets you position it in an unlimited number of angles in both portrait and landscape orientation.

The two legs snap together using magnets when not in use and they are compact enough to slip into pretty much any pocket. You can choose between light or dark wood and there are versions available for iPad Air, iPad mini, iPad mini Retina, iPad 3 and iPad 4. COBURNS started as a successful Kickstarter campaign but it is now available to the rest of the world.

➤ Get COBURNS iPad Stands now

Photo by: Pixels & Objects

Peek Calendar

Peek is an iPhone calendar app with unusual but very natural controls and a stunning UI – $1.99

No one can argue that there has been an overload of calendar apps for iPhone recently. I have tried a lot of them but so far none of them have really made me ditch the default iOS Calendar app. Apple’s own solution is working well for me but it sure has a few annoyances and unnecessary steps to access basic actions. So every time a new competitor shows up I’m checking it out.

Peek Calendar was released today and it looks like a winner to me. The official website uses the tag line “The calendar humanized” and even though that’s a bold statement I think they’re on to something. Peek has a very neat and flat UI that reminds me a bit about the to-do manager Clear. What’s even more important is the way you browse though the information and access the different controls. You can touch on a day to fold out all your calendar entries for that day and then touch again to close it. Touch and hold your finger for 0.5 seconds to create a new entry and then use all kinds of sliding controls to enter information. It feels very natural even though it’s a pretty different UI compared to most other apps.

I highly recommend that you watch this video because it made me buy the app:

Not only did Square Mountains create a good calendar app but they did a good job on the website and promo material as well.

➤ Get Peek Calendar now

Photo by: Square Mountains

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