Review: Cable Jive duraSync … how tough is your cable?
Chiyin says...
on Nov 17th, 2009 @ 4:03 pm
A while back Justin had some troubles with his iPhone USB cable breaking and apparently he was not the only one. The folks over at Cable Jive also experienced the same problems but instead of replacing theirs with a standard cable, they created the duraSync, a tougher cable that would not suffer the same tearing as the original.
How tough is this sync cable you ask? Well, our friends at Cable Jive sent us a sample to test it out…
The first thing we noticed was how much thicker the cable is. It has a thick rubber outer layer and a tear resistant inner shielding. The ends are also a lot tougher than the standard ones, the product description says there is a double layer protection on them, I didn’t try to pry them open to find out though, so we’ll take their words for it.
Function wise there’s not much to say, it works just like any other sync cable. Connect your device and it syncs.
To find out how tough the cable really is, we ran a few tests. First we tried pulling it, which didn’t do anything as the inner braided shielding is designed to keep the cable from tearing. Then we tried crushing it in a car door. We were actually able to charge the iPhone while the cable was caught in the car door. And for good measure we decided to run it over with a car. And guess what? The cable still works.
Now the question is, do you really need a cable this tough? And would you pay $20 for it? Personally I don’t think it’s necessary. For my daily use this cable would be overkill, especially when I can get a replacement cable for a fraction of the price. But if you live or work in a rough environment then it would probably make more sense. Overall this is a very well built cable that certainly lives up to its name, but at this price I don’t think it’s for everyone.
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Apples & Oranges, Reviews, iPhone Accessories, iPod
what can we expect from tomorrow’s event?
Chiyin says...
on Sep 8th, 2009 @ 11:11 am
Tomorrow is the highly anticipated Apple fall event… The invites sent out last week hint that it will be, as usual, an iPod event… But what can we expect? New iPod touch with camera? Discontinuation of the iPod Classic? How can Apple fill an entire event with just introduction of a new iPod? There has to be something else…
AppleInsider is predicting, besides the new iPods, an improvement of the App Store along with a new version of iTunes. They also mention the possibility of TV rentals on the mobile devices.
What do I think could make this event more exciting? Maybe introduction of the long awaited subscription based iTunes? They did recently approve the Spotify App across the pond… But then again Apple doesn’t approve apps that would “replicate” a function they offer as a first party, so that’s possibly ruled out… The tablet computer? I don’t think we will see this until next year, the invite pretty much says it all “It’s only rock and roll, but we like it”… So “rock and roll”… What could this mean? How about this, Steve Jobs saying “One more thing… The Beatles catalog is finally available on iTunes!” Now, that’s what I would call excitement, I’m getting giddy like a school girl just thinking about it… Yes, I’m a Beatles fan… Got a problem?
What do you think will happen?
Event confirmed for “rock n roll”… no tablet I suppose…
Chiyin says...
on Aug 31st, 2009 @ 12:40 pm
Arstechnica is confirming the event Apple has scheduled for September 9th… As the invite indicates it says “It’s only rock and roll, but we like it.” Which lead me to believe there won’t be announcement of the highly anticipated tablet. Now what I want to know is… Will we see The Beatles catalog in the iTunes Store?
MacBook Touch leaked in shot of website?
Chiyin says...
on Aug 19th, 2009 @ 1:49 pm
From Touch User Guide, a self proclaimed “ultimate guide to the Apple Tablet”, comes this picture of a screen showing the Apple website homepage with the rumored tablet computer. An interesting thing about this image is at the top where it says “iPhone Apps & OS X living in perfect harmony.” Apparently whomever made this mock screen thinks the tablet will behave as an extra large iPhone running OS X. Now, I say this is a mock screen because I don’t think Apple will let something as big as this slip out into the public.
The image has also sparked a debate among ourselves here at When Will Apple? On one hand Justin thinks it’s fake because the word “touch” in the name is capitalized, his logic is that the iPod touch doesn’t have the capital “T”. I’m not so sure about that though, since Apple naming convention for MacBooks do have capitalized letters, MacBook Pro / MacBook Air. But in both cases our guess for the name seems to be on target.
The question is when will it come? Tell us if you know
Image via touchuserguide.com
Woman dies in freak accident, iPod to blame?
Justin says...
on Aug 6th, 2009 @ 10:13 am
Sad story coming out of Philadelphia last night, a woman was struck and killed by a falling branch while running in Fairmount Park…her iPod still playing when police arrived. This reminds me of a visit to NYC. While walking around Central Park rocking out with my iPhone and taking pictures a woman suggested I remove one of my ear buds. She said it was dangerous to have them both in as I wouldn’t hear someone running up behind me. I didn’t really think much of it at the time since it was the middle of the day, but if it were night I think I’d probably follow her advice.
MyFoxPhilly reports:
“A large branch about 30-feet in length that fell, broke off a tree about 50-feet high in the air,” said Philadelphia Police Chief Inspector Scott Small at the scene. “Head injuries, what appears to be a broken neck and a compound fracture of her right leg. She was killed instantly. She was wearing an iPod and when police responded to the scene, the iPod was still playing music. She appears to be alone. Someone called 9-1-1. However, they didn’t stick around for police to arrive.”
Want to leave the iPod-iTunes family to try something new? …better think twice
Justin says...
on Jul 22nd, 2009 @ 12:03 am
After Christopher Null’s (of the Yahoo! Tech blogs) 5 year old 20GB iPod finally died, he thought why not see what else is out there in the MP3 world. I haven’t had the urge to stray from my iPod since I got my first one a few years ago, but I guess as a tech writer it was worth his effort…right?
All of the nitpicking began to weigh me down. I couldn’t find my music. I couldn’t sync it easily. I couldn’t just start typing a song or band name into WMP to have the display jump to that part of the library like you can with iTunes; I had to use the search system or scroll — agonizingly slowly — to where I wanted to be. And, if I changed anything about an item midway down the library listing (say, to upload new album artwork), WMP would then reset itself and jump back to the top of the library, forcing me to start all over.
When I was an Apple outsider I thought using iTunes would be a pain because it tries to sync everything and what if I had too much music or didn’t want to put everything on there? I know now that was just ignorance on my part as you can drag songs to a playlist and then sync just that playlist, as I do with my iPhone 3GS today. The funniest part of my unfounded concern was the fact that with an 80GB iPod I just did a full sync of my library anyway. I have become so used to Apple’s intuitive design I don’t think I could go back either and I have a feeling I’m not the only one who thinks so.
Christopher sums up his experience perfectly and demonstrates why iPod is and will continue to be the Kleenex of the MP3 world:
So I gave up. I bought an iPhone, moved everything back to iTunes, and haven’t looked back. Works great.
(via @counternotions)
