iPhone
It's not often I'm dumbfounded by products I see for children, but this one? Wow.
I'm not saying the CTA Digital 2-in-1 iPotty with Activity Seat for iPad is a harbinger for the End of Days but...
No. Wait. I guess I am.
CTA Digital 2-in-1 iPotty with Activity Seat for iPad, $34.98 from Amazon.com.
Again at CES this year ION was showing some really cool new products for older kids, parents or both. Their booth location this year definitely improved, and judging by that it seems like they are a company on the right track in the post iOS / Android world.
The Party Rocker is their attempt at making a party in box. A great solution for amateur DJs, it connects to your device via Bluetooth (or AUX IN) and also has a microphone input for karaoke or MCs. It also has a glass dome on top that projects light in sync with the music you're playing. The Party Rocker sounded great on the show floor and seemed like the sort of thing a college student would love. It will be available in the Spring of 2013 and will retail for $149. (It's smaller cousin the Road Rocker is available now for $99.99).
Maybe the coolest thing I saw at ION was the iDJ 2 Go Plus. For anyone who has played with DJ apps on the iPad (especially the amazing DJay from Algoriddim) it can be a little clunky to operate just using the screen. The iDJ 2 Go Plus puts every control the app requires into a real switch, knob or button and should make rocking any party incredibly easier. The "Plus" means that it has an Apple Lightning connector and should be available in the Spring for a MSRP of $99. Seriously, wedding DJs have never had it easier.
While this isn't a "Party Product" per se (at least any party I'm comfortable talking about in this blog...) the Sound Splash Bluetooth Splash Proof speaker seems like a great idea. Not only does it let you listen to Bluetooth audio off of your phone, it also lets you take a phone call while you're still in the shower. I wasn't able to hear the speaker quality at the show, but if I can get my hands on one I'll write a complete review later.
The Olloclip is my favorite accessory for the iPhone - more than any case or adapter. It's a deceptively simple little gadget that slides onto the corner of your phone and allows you to choose between three different lenses for your camera. With it you can make all sorts of images that you wouldn't be able to create with just the phone and an editing app.
But the Olloclip only works on an iPhone without a case. While this isn't a huge deal I have found it to be vexing at times, especially when I'm trying to capture something that my kids are doing. At CES this year they were showing a prototype case to address this issue. The cases have a hinge over the part where the Olloclip attaches to the phone which allows an Olloclip user to quickly put the accessory on and start taking pictures.
More importantly for parents perhaps was another product they were showing - an iPod touch (4th and 5th generation) adapter (also pictured above). I doubt I'd ever buy an Olloclip for my kids, but I can definitely see getting an adapter so they can experiment with mine on their devices as well.
Both products should be available sometime in Q1 of 2013. There has been no price determined as of this time.
Since my kids have gone back to school I've been giving a lot of thought to the tools that I use every day. This is the first in (maybe, hopefully) a series of the things that make my weekday life easier. Not all of them will be unique or even particularly special, but each of them make my day easier.
This app is what I've always wanted out of a turn-by-turn direction app on the iPhone, and it's not because it gives me directions. Waze helps drivers get around traffic by monitoring other Waze users on the roads and then suggesting alternate routes. The more drivers using Waze, the better all the users know how traffic is in real time. Trust me, it's awesome. Drivers can also report things like police speed traps, accidents and road construction giving other Waze users information on what is happening on the roads. When driving to and from school for my kids, it's proven invaluable.
There are loads of other location based features (like finding cheap gas) and there's a growing community of users trying to make the app better for everyone. I can't say enough good things about it, plus it's free to download and use.
I wrote yesterday over at The Gentlemen of Gaming about how underwhelmed I was towards video game stuff at CES this year. In fact, the only stand-out thing I saw was the iPod, iPhone and iPad game controllers from iON Audio. The standard iCade has been out for a year now. (You may have seen it at your local Best Buy - it's the miniature video game cabinet that turns your iPad into a little old-school arcade system.) This year they've got three more, the best of which is the iCade Mobile (shown below).
The iCade Mobile is a Bluetooth controller for an iPhone or an iPod Touch. You just put your device in the center, pair it with the controller and you can play any compatible game. Currently there are 100 games that are compatible, but there is a public SDK out there for developers to use so they are expecting more games available by launch. It felt substantial and seemed like a pretty cool thing, especially if you've got a son or daughter who are big iOS gamers. At an MSRP of $79.99 it's not cheap, but it's a lot cheaper than a PSP or a Nintendo DS, especially if your kid already has an iPod Touch.
iCade Mobile, available for $79.99 in May from iON Audio.
(Oh, and for you parents of girls like me, Toys R Us is going to have an exclusive pink version so look out for that too.)
I am really, really enjoying my GoPro video camera. For $200 to $300 you can get a great 1080p video camera that you can put almost anywhere. It will also take time lapse images which [I've been really enjoying lately][youtu]. At CES this year GoPro announced a really sweet accessory for their cameras.
The Wi-Fi BacPac + Wi-Fi Remote connects your GoPro camera to your iPhone, iPad or iPod Touch through a Wi-Fi network it creates. Once connected, you can see the live video output of the camera as well as control what it's doing.
It will also connect up to 50 GoPros at a time, giving you the ability to put these small cameras all over a shooting area and control them remotely.
Controlling 50 cameras might not be the use-case of the average person, but putting the camera in a hard to reach place and then controlling it with your iPhone opens up all kinds of possibilities creatively. Imagine putting the camera on your kid's skateboard helmet and then watching what he's doing live from his point of view. Or imagine attaching the camera to the hood of your car and turning it on periodically during long road trips. There is huge potential for cool things to do with it.
The WiFi BacPac will be available March of 2012 for around $100. It will work with the new HD Hero 2 cameras, as well as the HD Hero with limited capabilities (you can control the camera but you won't get live video streaming with the HD Hero).
It's hard not to dip into hyperbole about a man who's life is so extraordinary it essentially defies hyperbole. But I really can't think of a contemporary person (whom I've never met) that has had more of an effect on my daily life than Steve Jobs. His death is a great loss and, selfishly I suppose, I hope that his legacy survives long enough for us to transition into a world void of his unrelenting drive to make things better for everyone.
I think the best way to remember him is to go back and watch his 2005 Stanford commencement address.
Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart.
Next to email, web browsing and text messaging, the best thing about the iPhone 4 is the camera. (I'd even put it above the iPod and voice calling functions.) It really has invigorated my "real" photography and has me thinking all the time about making something creative with photos in ways I never have before.
My latest posts on Man of the House detail what I think are the five best camera and/or photography apps on the iPhone right now. A few months ago the list would have been different, and I'm sure in a month or two it will be different again.
Camera+
Camera + is the best picture taking application on the iPhone (that isn't made by Apple). It's got lots of features but doesn't get in the way of getting to taking pictures quickly. A steal at $0.99.
TiltShift Generator
Since I've written this piece, other apps have incorporated "tilt shift" functionality (namely Instagram), but this one is still one of my favorites. Blurring the focus on elements of an image can make your iPhone's camera look like you've got a thousand dollar lens on it.
Plastic Bullet Camera
The best app for making your iPhone's camera look like a crappy camera is Plastic Bullet. Like the the crappy plastic cameras it's very random, and often very awesome. And i's made by people who make insanely expensive professional video cameras, and it shows.
ToonPaint
ToonPaint turns your photo into an illustration. Even though I wrote about this app on Modern Day Dad already I had to include it in the top five. It's still lots of fun to use.
Instagram
I look at Instagram every day, and it's getting to the point where if I take a cool picture, I'm more likely to post it to Instagram than Facebook. I couldn't have imagined that would be true six months ago. It's got a great community, fun filters to put on your photos and lots of inspiring images to look at. And if you're on Instagram too look me up. I'm "thechrisford" in Instagram.
Phaidon Design Classics is a book (or really, a three volume set) for design nerds like me. In it they curate and chronicle 999 objects that they deem are noteworthy for their innovation, influence and are "perfect in their design." The objects are numbered and ordered chronologically, starting with Chinese household scissors from 1663 and ending with the most modern products of today.
Though you could buy the three volume set at Amazon for $110.25, for $19.99 you can get all of that content and more on your iPad - plus an extra product (product 1,000 - the suitably chosen iPhone). It's an awesome collection of things both historical and current, allowing you to browse through not only the history of object design but human history as well.
The interface is fairly easy to understand, and while the clicking sounds it makes when you transition to a new object are kind of hokey, they do help you navigate through the enormous collection. You can also narrow down the number of objects shown by choosing categories or by running keyword searches on the titles and descriptions.
Running a search on "children" yields 49 results, among which there are some of the things you might expect, like the Mammut Chid Chair sold by Ikea, the Tripp Trapp Child's Chair from Stokke or the Eames Hang-It-All. There are also many objects that are taken for granted but are nevertheless incredibly innovative, like Crayola Crayons, Pez candy dispensers, the very first Jigsaw Puzzle (made in 1776), or the very first Teddy Bear (made in 1902). I must admit that I never really gave much thought to the Classic Red Wagon from Radio Flyer (pictured), but two paragraphs later not only do I know the history behind how it was designed and developed, but I appreciate it all the more.
Phaidon Design Classics for iPad by Phaidon Press, $19.99 from the iTunes App Store.
CES was way over a month ago, but I just wanted to point your way to my final posts on the subject that are up now on the man/father super blog Man of the House. Here's the breakdown of everything I saw that was great for men and fathers:
CES 2011: Best New Gear of the Year - Most Useful - The Road Torq from Eton saves your bacon when you've got a flat tire
CES 2011: Best New Gear of the Year - Coolest Toy - The AR Drone iPod-controlled remote control helicopter.
CES 2011: Best New Gear of the Year - Best Television - The Samsung 8000 Series LED Television
CES 2011: Best New Gear of the Year - Most Innovative - The Razer Switchblade
CES 2011: Best of CES for Guys - And these are the "honorable mentions" of the things I saw at CES that were great, specifically for guys.
Cookie Doodle for the iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch is a great app for kids for three big reasons:
Cookie Doodle is an app that lets your kids go through all the steps of making a "virtual" cookie, from rolling out the dough, baking it, decorating it and eating it. Kids can pick from huge lists of types of dough, frosting, and other decorations. The app is also updated constantly for holidays, so right now for instance the app is configured for Valentine's Day cookies. But even if your child can't read yet, the interface is still simple enough to figure out how to use.
My daughters, especially my youngest (4 years old), love this app. Lots of apps for kids take a few minutes of their attention before they get bored, but when they're using Cookie Doodle they probably spend more time on it than any other app. There are so many choices and steps until the cookie is finished, that once they finally complete what they are working on they've already thought of another creation to make.
Trust me. Put it on your iPhone and hand it to them when you get to the restaurant, and before you know it you'll make it to when the food arrives with no drama. That is, unless they're fighting over who's turn it is to make the cookie.
Cookie Doodle by Shoe The Goose is available for $0.99 from the iTunes App Store.
I went to the Consumer Electronics Show last month, and I've bitched about written already about some of the stuff I saw, but today on Man of the House I've written about my top three disappointments. Including in this is my open post to George Lucas:
Dear Mr Lucas, enough already. I bought your movies when they were on VHS. And then I bought them again on VHS when you "updated" them. Then you made brand new movies that kind of sucked but I went (and even waited in line) to see those. And then I bought the good movies when they came out on DVD. And then I bought...
The 3 Biggest Disappointments of CES 2011 [Man of the House]
Let's assume that you're a person in 2011 with a smart phone and a Facebook account (or Twitter, or a blog etc.). You may not know it yet, but you're creating a diary. Walking around, taking pictures of your kids, updating your status, "checking in" to the park or restaurants - all of these things create a digital time-trail of where you've been and what you did. Momento for the iPhone is an ingenious little app that takes all of that stuff and aggregates it into a diary - automatically.
I've never kept a diary, and although a few years ago I tried tweeting all the stuff I did each day (I was inspired by the Twitter account of John Quincy Adams). It lasted all of a day or two. But I do create Facebook status updates fairly regularly, as well as post pictures, check in to Foursquare and blog. Momento takes all of those things and then puts them into a calendar so I can see what I was up to.
Once you give it your information, it will go back and grab as much as each service will provide, in many cases going back and getting months or years worth of stuff. It's really fun to go back and see what you were complaining thinking about a few months ago, or what your kids were up to, or what you thought was important at the time. You can also enter diary entries ("new moments") directly into Momento for those moments you want to keep but don't necessarily want to share with the rest of the world.
Though it will import from nine different services plus RSS/Atom feeds, there are a few other services I'd like to see. I'd love it to aggregate content from my Instagram feed for instance - or go back in time and find my TextAmerica Moblog images. (Is it even possible for anyone get those back?) It's also not optimized for iPad, which is unfortunate because I think it would be really cool optimized for an iPad - especially for viewing photos. An even better feature would be the ability to purchase a printed diary of what you did for an entire year (or other specific time frame). A skeuomorphic "virtual" diary transformed back into a real paper diary would be awesome.
I love this app, not only for what it does but for the possibiilities of what it could deliver in the future. Momento is made by d3i Ltd. and is available for $2.99 in the iOS App Store.
ToonPAINT is the most fun I've had with a photography iPhone app in a long time. It seems like every photo app I download (which, admittedly is a lot) just takes a picture you've taken with your iPhone and turns it into something that looks like you took it with a crappy camera from the 1970s. It was fun for a while, but honestly I'm bored with it. These apps made more sense when the iPhone camera wasn't that great, but now that the camera has been vastly improved in the iPhone 4, there isn't a need anymore to make your photos look even more hip worse.
ToonPAINT on the other hand takes your image and creates
a monochrome line drawing of it, which you can then color-in. The initial image can be adjusted for the edges, black level and gray level, and sometimes you'll just want to stop there. But if you want to color your photo, you can choose colors from a standard color-picker, the colors you've already chosen, or colors from the original image. The whole thing is really well thought out and very easy to use.
Check out some of the pictures I made above - a few are from images that weren't that great as photos, but suddenly become interesting in ToonPAINT. My kids in particular got a big kick out of using the app. They have used a similar app from Lego that turns a picture into a sort of "Lego" image, but the instant cartoon you get with ToonPAINT looks much cooler.
[UPDATE: Looking for my favorite iPhone Apps for children and parents? Check out this new feature on Modern Day Dad - iPhone App of the Week. I'll be reviewing and sharing my favorite iPhone and iPad Apps for children and parents.
iPhone App of the Week on Modern Day Dad]
Over at Babble.com I just posted something that I want to promote here too - Ten Best iPhone Apps for Distracting Young Children. Throwing my keys or random pieces of paper in my pocket to quiet a toddler in a shopping cart is nothing new to anyone, but with the new iPhone there are a lot of new and interesting diversions to throw at them. Provided of course you make sure they don't actually throw your phone back at you.
