This week’s roundup of iOS accessories includes several new ways to make sure your iPhone and iPad have all the power they need.
It’s been a long time since we heard an iPhone user pine for the wonders of a BlackBerry-style physical keyboard for their phone. Should such people remain, however, the $80 Keyboard Buddy Apple iPhone 6 Case is most assuredly for them. Pre-orders are available starting October 17.
New products from this company include the €40 Energy Music Box BZ3, a Bluetooth speaker system that plays your tunes and enables hands-free phone calls, and does all of it wirelessly. (Though it does have an SD card slot and a USB port, so you can connect your music however you wish.) It also includes FM radio, and it can play up to 15 hours of music on a single charge.
The $30 RockWall 5 is a portable charger with 5 USB ports, allowing you to recharge a whole panoply of iOS devices at once. It’s small enough to take with you on the road, and iLuv says it “also has an input voltage of 110-220V that allows you to use it even while traveling abroad.” Its total charge output: 5 amps.
Another pair of charging solutions from iLuv: The $15 myPower 2600 Portable Battery Pack, and the $30 myPower 5200 Portable Battery Pack (pictured). The former features a 2600 mAH battery able to charge an iPhone 5S 1.6 times; the latter product doubles those specs, obviously, and throws in a flashlight in the device for good measure.
The $25 GoBuddy+ might well be the most useful device in the world. It’s a compact charging and syncing cable you can easily carry around in your pocket. And it’s a bottle opener. Does it get any better than that?
The latest keyboard case for iPad Air is the $100 Type+—it improves the keyboarding experience by increasing the distance between the keys and a dedicated row of iOS shortcuts “that put navigation at your fingertips.” It’s available in “carbon black” and “mars red orange,” starting in October.
The $60 Tassel Charging Cable Keychain is “a charging cable that’s always at the ready and a stylish fringe accessory” that clips easily to your bag or keychain, available to be used as a charging-syncing cable when the moment calls for it. And when it’s not in use? It always looks good as a fashion accessory.
The $70 PoP’n 2 is a 4000-mAh battery that attaches to the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus in somewhat different fashion—it attaches to the back of your new phone using suction cups. PowerSkin says: “The battery pack gives the iPhone 6 one-and-a-half full charges and the iPhone 6 Plus one full charge, and weighs less than 5 ounces.” It comes in black, white, pink, and blue.
Author: Joel Mathis
Joel Mathis is a regular contributor to Macworld and TechHive. He lives in Philadelphia with his wife and young son.