iPad By Davis: “SOSCharger arrives on Kickstarter, delivers self generated power to your iPhone” plus 9 more

SOSCharger arrives on Kickstarter, delivers self generated power to your iPhone
iMore Editors' Choice: Photolettering, Slacker Radio, PWN, and more
Apple adds new webpage, sends out emails telling us why people love iPhones... more than other phones
Best Free iPad App of the Week: NCAA March Madness Live
iPad in Education: at Burlington High School
ARTcloth: iPad Screen Cleaning with Some Artistic Flair
Sponsor Thanks: FX Photo Studio HD
How to disable access to Siri and Passbook from the iPhone lock screen
Hands-on: iPhone 5 vs. Galaxy S4
iMore show. Today. Clayton Morris. 10am PT/2pm ET. Be here!

SOSCharger arrives on Kickstarter, delivers self generated power to your iPhone

Posted: 17 Mar 2013 01:18 AM PDT

SOSCharger arrives on Kickstarter, delivers self generated power to your iPhone The SOSCharger has arived on Kickstater and looks to solve the age old solution of a dead phone battery when you are no where near a power outlet. The SOSCharger is a self generated power charger which means you wind up a handle which creates power for your iPhone. Going one step further, the SOSCharger also has a built in 1,500 mAh Lithium Polymer battery so it has the power to charge almost any phone on the market. If the extra battery dies, you then have the option of using the manual crank handle; 3-5 minutes of cranking will provide 5-12 minutes of talk time.

You can charge the SOSCharger with your standard USB wall charger; the same one that came with your smartphone or Bluetooth device. Once the battery is charged, the SOSCharger acts as a backup power source for your USB-powered devices.

The incorporated hand-crank turbine, utilizes a powerful generator, combined with a long-handle for more leverage and easy turning. If you run out of internal battery power, or you just want to keep the battery topped off, you can turn the handle to charge it up. Just turn the handle and the battery charg)es. We've included an indicator so you know when it's charging and how much juice you have in the battery. What could be easier?

If you are often out of reach of a power outlet or spend a lot of time camping or hiking this is certainly an excellent accessory to have in your backpack. The comfort of knowing that you will never be without your iPhone in critical situations is a very welcoming thought to have.

If you would like to get in on some early SOSCharger action you can grab one when / if they make it to production. A minimum pledge of $35 will be enough to get one including free shipping. There was a cheaper offer at just $25 however that has now all been taken up and the SOSCharger has already smashed through its pledge goal of $27k; it currently sits at over $40k and still has 39 days to go.

What do you think of the SOSCharger? Would you carry one around with you for that extra piece of mine?

Source: Kickstarter

iMore Editors' Choice: Photolettering, Slacker Radio, PWN, and more

Posted: 16 Mar 2013 03:49 PM PDT

iMore Editors' Choice: Photolettering, Slacker Radio, PWN, and more

Every week, the editors and writers at iMore carefully select some of our favorite, most useful, most extraordinary apps, accessories, gadgets, and websites. This week's selections include an app that tracks your sleep, an app that displays updates from your social networks, a few games, an app for History geeks, a fun photo apps, and a music streaming service.

Sleep Cycle alarm clock - Chris Oldroyd

Sleep is the most important thing you can give your body and it is also one of the most popular areas that people have trouble a with. Having knowledge of how well you are sleeping can be invaluable so you can see what effect alcohol has on your sleeping and much more.

To get this information, I use an app called Sleep Cycle alarm clock, its main purpose is to monitor your sleep so it can wake you up during light sleep so you awake relaxed and in a good mood. I don't use the alarm part of the app but instead solely use it to monitor my nights sleep.

All you need to do is put your iPhone under your sheet next to your pillow and it will sense your movements during the night and tell you how long you were asleep for and how deep that sleep was too. The app needs at least 5 consecutive days of data to be able to tell you how good your sleep is and then you can also start comparing different sleep patterns on different nights. Because of this app, I can see how drinking alcohol severely reduces the quality of my sleep and the length too. Little things like this can help you make good life choices.

I you want to use it as an alarm, you pick a a 30 minute period when you want to wake up. The app monitors your sleep patterns during that 30 minutes and wakes you gently when it thinks you are ready to wake. Quite clever but not something that I want to use.

$0.99 – Download Now

Screenfeeder - Joseph Keller

Sometimes I don't want to keep opening apps in order to stay current with my social networks. Staying up to date requires jumping between apps several times per day. To make sure I keep on top of everything without constantly moving between apps, I use Screenfeeder. Screenfeeder puts all of your social feeds in one place and shows you new items as they come in, one at a time. While Screenfeeder limits you primarily to reading your feed, you can interact a little with different items. For instance, you can retweet and mark tweets as favorites or like posts from Facebook and Instagram. Screenfeeder keeps your screen on while in the app so it's best to use it while your device is plugged in.

Screenfeeder is universal, offered for free, and allows you follow one of your feeds for free, with an option to buy access to each successive service for $0.99 each, or all services for $3.99.

Free - Download Now

Wacky Rapids - Chris Parsons

I have to admit, although I've been playing this game for quite some time now I initially discovered it on BlackBerry. Not that that's a bad thing by any means, just rather interesting all things considered. Wacky Rapids comes to us via Paw Print Games with the goal of course being fairly simple. Get your racer down the river as fast as you can to both come in first place and score the largest amount of points. That may sound easy but given the obstacles and different levels you'll face its gets harder as the game goes on. Wacky Rapids is an accelerometer based game so there will be plenty of twisting and turning your device in order to keep your racer on the right track. Overall, it's a pretty fun game that's enjoyable for all ages plus, it's available as a free download. With over 120 missions to complete, it'll keep you busy.

Free - Download now

## PWN - Simon Sage

When I was a kid, my dad assumed that because I spent all of my time playing video games, I could have a future in programming. If I was more industrious and less insolent, that might have panned out, but at least now I can pretend I'm a bad-ass hacker in this new competitive puzzle game called PWN. Players battle over nodes, which are computers embodied by little cubes connected in a network which is visible as a 3D mesh. Players can only hack into one node at a time, and it takes a few seconds to capture it. You can only capture nodes connected to ones you already control, and if nodes ever become separated from the rest of your network, they become vulnerable to attack. Players use a variety of special defensive and offensive abilities to control the whole network, and pick hacker characters that have certain bonuses when using those abilities. Every character has their own single-player campaign, or you can go up against a buddy in a multiplayer match over Bluetooth. If you've got a soft spot for the mid-90s movie Hackers, definitely check this one out.

$1.99 - Download Now

History Here - Ally Kazmucha

I am a huge History Channel nerd and if I'm not watching my regular shows, I've always got a learning channel or home improvement channel on. When I came across the History Here app, I was slightly intrigued. It basically shows you all the historical areas and attractions in your vicinity. I was past intrigued when I realized there are lots of things in my immediate area that I never even knew about.

History Here will use your current location to find things around you that are of historical importance. Some of these are attractions or museums while others are parks or geographical locations. Whether you're into history or not, it's worth taking a look. Never hurts to learn something new!

Free - Download Now

Photolettering - Rene Ritchie

John Gruber of Daring Fireball linked to Photolettering yesterday and I've been playing around with it ever since. The gist is this: take or open photos, neaten them up the way you like, then add House Industries fonts and Photo-Lettering alphabets to take them to the next level, and share away.

There's an art to layering finely crafted lettering onto eye popping photography that makes the end result far more than the sum of its parts. It's something high end posters, postcards, and book covers have done for years. And now, thanks to Photolettering, you can do it simply and easily right on your iPhone.

Photolettering is free with a few fonts, additional fonts are available via in-app purchase. They're $0.99 each or $9.99 for all of them. Check it out and let me know if you have as much fun with it as I'm having.

Free - Download now

Slacker Radio - Leanna Lofte

This week, I started working out at a gym today and since I don't have a single song stored on my iPhone and must have music to work out, I turned to Slacker Radio. I've had a membership with Slacker for a long time now and the interface on the iPhone (and web) recently received a nice makeover. There are other similar services out there, but I've always been happy with Slacker.

Free - Download now

Your choice?

Now that we've chosen our favorites for the week, we want to hear yours! Did you pick up a killer app, accessory, or game this week? Let us know in the comments below!

Apple adds new webpage, sends out emails telling us why people love iPhones... more than other phones

Posted: 16 Mar 2013 02:15 PM PDT

Apple adds new webpage, sends out emails telling us why people love iPhones... more than other phones

Apple has updated Apple.com with a new page, and sent out an email campaign, aimed at telling us just why people love iPhones... and why competing phones just aren't as good. The timing, so soon after Samsung announced the Galaxy S4 is certainly interesting, and feels like it marks a shift in Apple's strategy towards the more aggressive, more competitive product marketing. Apple did a lot of this in the "Get a Mac" days with their "I'm a Mac" and "I'm a PC" character commercials, but it hasn't been a major focus of their mobile campaigns until now.

Mixed into the new webpage and mailer, are lines like:

Every detail and every material — particularly the sleek aluminum enclosure — has been meticulously considered and refined.

The Galaxy series is, famously, plastic/polycarb and not generally considered to be as high quality plastic/polycarb as HTC or Nokia uses.

Yet [the Retina display] remains a feature found only on iPhone and other Apple products.

Other companies have fielded larger, denser screens. Apple might be referring to technology like the in-cell display and the individual color calibrations to make an overall case for their displays.

But it's extraordinary that we fit such a powerful battery into such a thin and light design — all thanks to Apple scientists who created unique battery chemistry instead of settling for a large, off-the-shelf option.

iPhone has an impressive battery life for it's size. I'd still argue that a slightly thicker iPhone could enjoy even more impressive battery life and few people would quibble at the difference in volume.

And the A6 chip works hand in hand with iOS 6 to be extremely power efficient. So you don't sacrifice battery life for speed.

Apple, like BlackBerry, makes every bit and every atom, so they can fine tune the performance. Samsung uses a third-party operating system (Google's Android) but has put a dual quad core beast into the Galaxy S3. Does that really matter? Given how Android still isn't optimized for interface, if interface is important to you, then sure it does.

And while other smartphones simply tout large amounts of megapixels, taking great pictures is about so much more.

Some smartphones tout large megapixel counts. The HTC One has "only" a 4-megapixel camera but the sensor is 2 micros, which is huge for light gathering, and it has OIS (optical image stabilization) so it can keep the aperture open longer on stationary objects and collect more light . Nokia's Lumia 920 does similar. Oversampling is where they're going.

The iPhone 5 has an amazing camera, arguably still the best camera in mobile, and at a size so thin it's literally a miracle of engineering, but others have also broken the megapixel bad habit.

With iPhone, all that [media and app] content comes from one source: Apple. [...](Other mobile platforms have a myriad of fragmented store options, resulting in availability issues, developer frustration, and security risks.)

This is the malware knock on Android, which is mostly a problem for those who steal apps from untrustworthy sources. Amazon does have their own Android app store, however, and there are issues for developers given the enormous diversity of the Android device catalog. Every benefit has an associated drawback.

Every iPhone comes with support from real people who know everything there is to know about iPhone and iOS — people you can call at 1-800-MY-APPLE or speak to in person at your favorite Apple Retail Store whenever you have questions or concerns. With other smartphones, you're not sure where to go for help. Call the manufacturer, and they tell you to call your service provider. Call your service provider, and they tell you to contact the OS developer. Getting answers shouldn't be that hard. And with Apple, it never is.

This is the nuke in Apple's current arsenal. You can walk into an Apple store with a busted phone, and thanks to AppleCare+ and iCloud, you can walk out again a few minutes later with a brand new phone that's also exactly your phone. No one else is doing this because no one else has the retail footprint Apple has.

The stuff up top is interesting, but for any mainstream customer who lives anywhere near an Apple Store, this is the real reason why you should love the iPhone most right now.

Apple's never been the marketshare leader in smartphones. Nokia and RIM had a huge lead when the iPhone launched, and Android has the lead now. Apple is and remains the profit-share leader, but for the first time they're engaged in a real battle for mainstream mind share. The Galaxy S4 might be the first phone to get as much attention as the iPhone.

Some might find this new campaign defense or reactionary. Maybe. Either way, it's a shift, and that's exciting. A scrappy Apple is going to be fun to watch.

If you got Apple's new iPhone love letter, let me know your reaction. And head on over to Apple's new "Why iPhone" page, read it through, and let me know what you think.

Source: Apple.com Why iPhone page

Best Free iPad App of the Week: NCAA March Madness Live

Posted: 16 Mar 2013 11:08 AM PDT

One of the best things about using an iPad is all the great apps that we can run on it. There are excellent apps for just about any purpose you can think of. Better still, there are lots of great free apps for the iPad. Our Best Free iPad App of the Week posts highlight these apps.

This week's pick is NCAA March Madness Live, the official app for the NCAA Men's Basketball Tournament, freshly updated for 2013 madness.

Here's some detail on the app via its App Store description:

NCAA® March Madness® LIVE offers these great features:
- Watch LIVE streaming of all 67 NCAA® Men's Basketball Tournament games – Track the entire bracket live throughout the tournament
- Follow live scores, team and player stats – including a live lead tracker (iPad only)
- Make your picks and create groups in the Capital One NCAA® March Madness® Bracket Challenge, the official...

Read the whole entry... »