Posimotion Helix gaming grip

Posimotion have overcome these fears with the $19.99 Helix gaming grip. This is basically a steering wheel style of holder allowing you to keep a good hold on your device and improves the tactile input whilst playing games. The design of the Helix is such that the iPhone can be installed in both portrait or landscape modes.

If you dont own an iPhone but have an iPod Touch then the Helix is for you too. Posimotion provide an adapter that mates with the Helix to provide a cradle to securely hold your iPod Touch as well.

I was able to try out the Helix when I visited the Posimotion offices in Florida. I found it easy to use, but not being an avid gamer I handed it over to the experts to show me how effective it really is. We have one in for review at the moment so more details will follow soon.

In the mean time the Helix gaming grip will be available from Best Buy and online from the Posimotion store for $19.99 plus taxes and shipping.

Posimotion Helix with iPod adapter

Posimotion Helix with iPod adapter

Posimotion Helix in portrait mode

Posimotion Helix in landscape mode

When I met Posimotion there was a special offer being promoted with the Helix: A free copy of their latest game Twisted Abyss. When I visited them the game was not quite complete, but was shaping up very nicely. Twisted Abyss is a 3D submarine shoot-em-up with the combat vessels modelled on aquatic creatures taking on their unique attributes in the game.

Twisted Abyss free with Posimotion Helix

Twisted Abyss free with Posimotion Helix

Twisted Abyss free with Posimotion Helix

Twisted Abyss free with Posimotion Helix

We will have more about Twisted Abyss very soon…

The Posimotion Helix gaming grip Press Release follows:

PosiMotion is pleased to announce that the Helix, a gaming accessory for the iPhone and iPod touch, is now available in Best Buy stores. It can be found in the Best Buy Mobile section, as well as bestbuy.com ($19.99USD).

Helix has a grip-enhancing soft touch that vastly improves gaming performance. Both extremely light and portable, Helix offers a sleek aesthetic and ergonomic design for enhanced playing comfort and control.

Features include:
• Compatible with iPhone 3G, 3GS and iPod touch 2G, 3G
• Devices fit securely in portrait and landscape orientation
• Comfortably wide handles for accurate steering control
• Sturdy, durable construction
• Simple wire management
• Ideal for racing, first person shooters, action RPG’s, flight simulators, side-scrollers… virtually any game.

Check out the new Helix video at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sew-IivonhQ

For more info about Helix, visit http://www.posimotion.com/helix

Posimotion Helix gaming grip.

See below for their email:

Good morning,

I’ve had a chance to read your review about our ecovez collection. It’s unfortunate that our product didn’t impress you but we here at Innovez appreciate your honesty.  Innovez is always striving to find ways to improve our products and satisfying our customers. We would like to let you know that our logos have been greatly improved. The front ecovez logos are completely flush. The edges of the logo on the back has been rounded and lowered to a minimal.  We kept it slightly raised for added texture but now when you run your fingers over it, it’s extremely smooth. We also used a new eco-friendly adhesive technology that binds the aluminum logos to the polycarbonate plastic material, now achieving a better molecular interaction that ensures the logos won’t fall out. Per our last conversation, if you recall, I had let you know that we were working on a biodegradable plastic covering for the individual case within the [wooden] shell packaging and we have accomplished this. I have provided images for your viewing as well. We are currently in the process of making further improvement to our case and taking all customer and product reviewers comments to consideration and implementation. In that being said, we would like you to acknowledge these improvements and perhaps provide a follow-up review for our product?

I look forward to hearing from you soon.

Regards,
[name removed]

So, in the near future there may be another review of the new and improved Ecovez cases! Like I said in the original review, I like the design but there were some issues with it’s implementation. If these have been resolved then this would greatly improve my review. It just goes to show that there are companies who listen and actively improve on their products.

Shortly after we covered Jivo’s biodegradable case at MWC earlier this year we received an email from Innovez claiming that they had released the first ever translucent biodegradable case made using EcoPure (the same ingredient that makes Jivo’s cases biodegradable). I was sent some images to tease me while the samples were in transit from Chicago. I like the design of the case – it’s certainly different with the curve on the bottom left and the cutaway for the camera lens. I’m not particularly bothered about the whole ‘eco’ side of things but at least this case dared to be different.

On arrival I was faced with three cases – a red, a green and a black/grey. The packaging was quite neat and consisted of a wooden box held together with magnets and enclosed by a card wrap; simple and very effective. I was, however, surprised to see that the glossy plastic case was laid in the slightly rough wooden case completely naked. The box wasn’t a tight fit so the iPhone case had a bit of leeway to move around and it was actually a little marked when first taken out of the box. The green and black cases were sent in small plastic bags to reduce the weight of the overall package and so were nice and shiny still. OK, so they’re trying to be eco-friendly here but surely there are eco-friendly wrappers they could have used to protect the case from the packaging?

Anyway, enough of the packaging. Why do I dislike the case so much? Well, firstly it is quite a snug fit and the plastic is quite hard. How can I put this politely…?! It scratched my iPhone. Yes, you read that right, the case designed to protect my iPhone actually damaged it. It’s not a massively obvious scratch, the camera can’t even pick it up, but I know it’s there and it is most visible as it runs top to bottom over the shiny silver Apple logo. Not happy. One theory I had for this was maybe a bit of the wooden box, even only a tiny grain, had landed inside the case as there was no protection and then when the iPhone was slid into it the tight fit caused it to rub against the back of the phone.

The stylish aluminium logos are not flush with the case but stick out about a millimetre – possibly slightly more. They are sharp and they hurt if you catch your fingers on one of their many edges. I actually ripped my jeans pocket with the Ecovez case – the back logo got caught when I was attempting to answer a call. Perhaps more worrying, although some effort was involved, I managed to draw blood form a friends hand using the aluminium inserts [do not try this at home, this was done by 'trained' professionals etc etc etc]. Do NOT put this case down on a table – it WILL scratch it.

The case fits snugly and allows access to the dock, speaker, microphone, volume and headphone sockets. However, one design flaw, in my opinion, is at the top of the back of the case. My iPhone, like yours, curves in at the top but the case, because the iPhone slides in from the top, is not fitted to this curve. As such there is a ‘lip’ at the back which, like the ‘recycle-leaf’ logo, will catch on your fingers, hands and pocket lining. It’s also actually quite sharp itself. There’s a theme here… Some more rounded corners wouldn’t go amiss! The inside corner of the case is rounded, presumably to allow the iPhone to slip in easier, but the outer corners are too sharp.

In general the case is very sturdy but the top could be a weak point. The top is all open and the front, as you can see in the photo’s, is also quite thin. It has a lot of ‘give’ in it – it may be strong enough to withstand a lot of force but I didn’t want to test it to destruction! It certainly didn’t ‘feel’ particularly strong and sturdy like the rest of the case. I actually thought it could snap on the many occasions the case got caught in my pocket.

I mentioned earlier about the aluminium logo’s sticking out from the rest of the case – this actually causes another issue. The pieces are glued in place and, because they are sharp, get caught on things and generally like to cause trouble, they also come off. Within an hour of using the case half of the Innovez logo had fallen off in my pocket…

So, there you have it! A nice idea, but poorly executed. I like the general design of the case such as the parts that overlay the front of the iPhone but it is sadly let down by poor manufacturing. It physically hurts to use this case, and it’s too damaging to your iPhone, your clothes and your friends hands! Sorry Innovez, it’s just not quite there…

(Weird) Competition Time!

I have three of these cases and, to be perfectly honest, I don’t want any of them. Therefore, if for some strange reason you want one (maybe as a present for an ex or your Mother-in-Law) then follow us on Twitter @Wired4iPhone and keep a look out for a competition coming soon!

Competition has now been launched. Simply tweet the following 140 characters:

Win 1 of 3 Ecovez iPhone cases (http://bit.ly/cT9uWf) RT with this hashtag: #w4iECOVEZ. Random winners selected Tue 1st Jun. (@Wired4iPhone)

The idea behind the Powermat system is one of simplicity – charge as many devices as you can using a single socket. For this to work you need to remove the main obstacles; those obstacles are generally in the form of custom, proprietary and generally different power adapters. What you have with the Powermat system is a charging mat that you place your device on and, well, it charges it – without the wires/adapters.

This site is called Wired4iPhone for a reason: we like iPhones. As such I will mainly concentrate on the iPhone Powermat solution and only briefly mention these ‘other devices’ that apparently exist. So, the obvious question is how do you charge your iPhone without connecting a lead? Well, basically you stick it in a Powermat case which has a direct connection into the “dock-connector” and a power receiver on the back. The case itself is sturdy, made out of a slightly rubberised plastic and adds around 3mm to the depth of the phone and about 6-8mm to the bottom where the dock connector fits into it. While it’s not overly bulky, the receiver does tend to cause an unsightly bulge in your pocket – perhaps if the case had been designed to blend into the receiver a bit more rather than sticking out so much then it may have ‘felt’ a bit better in your pocket. While in the case you can easily get to the power, and volume buttons but the silent switch is tricky to control though – it is easy to flick it away to put it into silent but, because of it’s proximity to the case, it is hard to actually pull back to turn silent mode off. The case also has openings at the base for the microphone and speaker.

So, your iPhone has it’s new jacket on so what next? Well, you need to charge it! This is beautifully simple – put it on the charging mat. Yes, that’s it – no fiddling with the lead, simply place it on one of the ‘dots’ on the mat. These ‘dots’ are magnetic so if you are very slightly off target it will pull it into place. You will also get a confirmatory noise and the white LED will glow (both the sound and lights can be turned off). This particular mat has 3 charge points but you will also be able to buy single point mats in the near future – these were on display at MWC but are not yet on the Powermat website. The Powermat will not overcharge your iPhone as it detects when it is fully charged and turns off the supply. I’m pretty sure it is all more technological that this but from an end-user point of view it’s all very simple!

Rather annoyingly the Powermat iPhone case does not use the standard iPhone sync lead, instead the case has a micro-USB connection (the lead is included). The case is actually quite tricky to remove so unless you have another micro-USB lead in the car then you will start to get fed up with the whole set up…

Another disadvantage is the likelihood that you are the only person you know with a Powermat set up. This means when you go away you either need to take the Powermat with you (a normal charger is way smaller) or remove the case (somewhat defeating the point). This is, however, a chicken and egg situation: as more people use Powermat, more charging points will be available, but without the availability of public or commonplace mats then fewer people might be inclined to use the system…

All is not lost though, at MWC the company were showing off their OEM kit along with a camcorder battery, smartphone battery and kettle all with Powermat built in. Once companies see the potential of such a system then it should be easier to get your device(s) charged.

As well as the iPhone case you can also get an add-on for a Nintendo DS, back plate for Blackberry, iPod dock and the Powercube. I managed to get a Powercube and iPod dock for this review.

The iPod dock is adjustable according to which model you have and does a good job of holding your ipod in place thanks to a rubber grip. Again, to charge you place the dock on the charge mat. The Powercube is for practically everything else. It contains a receiver, a mini-USB fly-lead and a box of adapters. The adapters fit onto the mini-USB and allow you to connect various phones and devices. It’s quite handy and they’ve even printed the adaptor type onto each one in case you get your Samsung mixed up with Sony Ericsson! This brings us back to the chicken and egg again, you have more adapters and leads than if you just took a single charger but then if more places had a Powermat available then it would actually give you less to carry.

Overall it’s a good system. The parts are well made and don’t feel cheap. Perhaps that is because they’re not cheap! The set up below costs a rather staggering £169.96 (Powermat £69.99, iPhone case £34.99, iPod dock £34.99, Powercube £29.99). Again, once something like this becomes more common place then the prices may drop – or at least I would hope so!

The whole thing works well but is let down somewhat by the lack of places, for example hotels, who offer a Powermat as a service. But then more people must embrace the technology before anything like that will happen. If they hurry up and market the replacement smart phone batteries they had on show, as well as pushing the OEM take up, then it could speed up the whole process.

Having played with the 3G version of OS4 for a few days there are a few new features that are quite small but are really useful.

Firstly the Spotlight Search has been extended to include messages (previously only mail was searched). Also, at the end of the results list are two quick links to search in Google and in Wikipedia. This opens up the relevant search page in Safari.

The next new feature is the integrated spell-check. Unrecognised words are underlined in red and then when you tap on the word you are given a few suggestions as to what word you intended writing. This, along with the good old spelling corrections, makes typing in the iPhone even more fulfilling.

Searching in Safari has also been improved. The Google/Yahoo! search bar now offers suggested searches just like when you use the normal Google/Yahoo! websites.

Maps has a new view mode so you now have the option of map, satellite, hybrid or list. List simply shows a list of the directions for your route or just shows your search result(s) in text form.

Whenever the GPS (or other ‘My Location’ services) are running you now get an arrow showing in the status bar. I can only assume that this has been added as am aid to multitasking so you an easily see if there’s an app running that’s using the GPS.

Sending messages has become friendlier for the cheap-skates among us (or those who tweet by SMS) with the new option of a ‘character count’. After writing 3 lines of a message a count appears above the send button saying, for example, 89/160. At the moment it will also simply say 254/160 but you have to work out for yourself how many messages that will take up! Remember though, this is still beta so it may well be improved upon.

App folders work really well and have been covered by various blogs across the web. Simply drag an app on top of another one to create a folder and then rename it and add/arrange further apps. You can fit up to 12 apps into a folder and can also place them in the dock thereby giving you quick access to 48 apps regardless of which home screen you are currently on.

The Camera app now has 5x digital zoom, for what it’s worth. Simply tap the screen and a slider will appear. It’s digital zoom though so not completely wonderful, but still, it’s something new so worth a mention!

And, finally, the unified inbox! This is great! Changes mailboxes was such a hassle but now from your inbox it’s a single tap to get to the list of accounts where you can either view a single mailbox or everything together. You can still view all the other folders (Trash, Sent etc) easily too. Another enhancement to the Mail app is threaded email. If you have multiple emails with the same subject / recipient then you can view these in a single thread. Mail will show the number of messages and a double arrow to signify this.

UPDATES:

The Calendar app has had a little update too – but it’s very useful. You can now select which calendars you want to display for example if you have a few Mobile Me calendars as well as a GMail calendar. Also added is a Birthdays calendar – the data for this is pulled from your contacts list and is not editable (i.e. you can’t add an alert for them).

Something I missed earlier with the updates to the Mail app is the new option to resize image attachments. When you press ‘send’ you are asked if you want to resize the image or use the original size.

Over the air Notes syncing has also been added. The Notes app now has an accounts button where you can choose which notes are shown in the list – this includes ‘all notes’, Mobile Me notes’, ‘gmail notes’ and ‘notes on the iPhone’.

In the Settings there are a couple of new additions too. You can now turn off all cellular data and not just 3G like you could previously. Also, once you have given an app permission to use your location then you can manually turn on/off that permission in the Location Services settings.

I mentioned earlier about the spell-check feature when inputting text. Something I missed was the option to ‘Replace’. When you select text you now get the option to Cut, Copy, Paste or Replace. Replace simply gives you a selection of a few similar looking words to change to. This would be useful when you accidentally select the wrong word via the spell-checker!

And, finally, for this update the iPod’s ‘On-The-Go Playlists’ have been removed! Before you reel in horror I should explain that they have been replaced with just good, old fashioned, playlists. Tap on ‘Add Playlist’, give it a title and then pick the songs you want to add.

If we find any further forgotten features we’ll make sure we post them here at Wired4iPhone.com

On the website you can view all your previous tracks as well as historical data to see how (if?) you’ve improved and also see your friends logs. The maps can be easily shared via the likes of Twitter and Facebook.

The iPhone app is available for free here and allows friends to send ‘pep talk’ messages that are then read out using Text to Speech to the user for example “Come on Mickey, you’ve been sat in Starbucks for 30 minutes, now get moving”.

The app and website are completely free at the moment. Premium features will be made available in the future (such as personalised training regimes) but the app and site, as they are now, will remain free – it will simply be additional features that will be paid for.

Jivo also have some eco-headphones, ‘Elements’, which are made from renewable cedar-wood. I’ve not seen (or heard) these in use but we will try to get some for review in the near future.

They also have a range of other, non-eco, cases and accessories so head over to their website and see what they have on offer!

CamerAlert is a Speed and Red Light Camera warning system for iPhones based on the popular PocketGPSWorld.com Speed Camera Database. It provides both audible and visual warnings as you approach a camera. When you are in a section of SPECs or Average Speed Cameras CamerAlert keeps track of your average speed to ensure you are aware of your average speed between each camera. To cut down on the number of “False Alerts” you are only warned for cameras that monitor your direction of travel.

CamerAlert works in two different modes: Map and List. In Map mode the main display is a map with the cameras positioned on it. This can be shown either as “North Up” or “Course Up”. The list mode simply shows a list of all the cameras in the area, highlighting the ones that you are approaching.

CamerAlert comes preinstalled with a Speed Camera Database. To ensure you have the latest camera information there is a free Latest Database Guarantee which allows you to download the latest database after product registration. CamerAlert allows you to use your existing PocketGPSWorld.com membership to keep the camera data up to date. With weekly releases of the database it is important to download the latest speed camera information to remain safe.

If you see a camera that is not in the database then you can report it using CamerAlert. This feature can also be used to change information about a camera already in the database i.e. changing speed or direction information.

Click here for more details and the CamerAlert user guide.

Powermat products are already available in the UK at John Lewis and Amazon among others) but some new products such as a single-device Powermat bundled with an iPhone case will be available in a wider range of high street stores.

We have secured one of these cases and a Powermat and will be reviewing the set up in the coming weeks.

AA Best of Britain

Mobile Commerce has partnered with the AA, a UK motoring organisation and travel publisher, to deliver the AA ‘Best of Britain’ iPhone application. The application provides all the information the user needs to find and book a weekend, or week, away in Britain and acts as a guide locating local entertainment and points of interest.

The AA Best of Britain iPhone App

Using the AA’s extensive database and with fully installed content, Best of Britain offers a guide covering every aspect for planning leisure pursuits – from hotels, pubs, guest houses and restaurants, to days out, golfing, caravanning and camping – the application features over 14,000 inspected, selected and recommended establishments, offering the traveller an unparalleled choice of places to stay, eat, drink or play a round of golf in Great Britain.

Entries within Best of Britain have been researched by experts and include detailed descriptions, pricing information, opening hours, more than 5,000 images, phone numbers, links to websites and detailed search options. The user is able to search around their current location or enter a location of their choice, with the results displayed on an embedded Google map.

The AA Best of Britain application will cost £4.99 to download via the iTunes App Store.