Review: TYLT PowerPlant and Zumo Portable Chargers

Image from fkn-famous

TYLT, a new portable electronics company is now unleashing a slew of products, targeted towards smartphone owners who are constantly running low on battery. The iPhone 4S and many other smart phones and music players now do so much more, and require more battery. TYLT has the perfect solution, bringing in a range of portable battery packs, including the PowerPlant and the Zumo, which we will talk about. Note: The PowerPlant is available in Sprint Retail Stores and Sprint online. All other TYLT products are not yet available for purchase but will be soon (check out TYLTs website by clicking here or going to www.TYLT.com)

PowerPlant

The PowerPlant has a 5,200 mAh battery with a built-in “Flex Charging Arm”. The TYLT PowerPlant comes equipped with either a Micro-USB connector for smartphone and Android devices or an optional 30-pin Apple connector for IOS devices. The TYLT PowerPlant has a Micro-USB charging socket located  behind the “Flex Port” cover, and also a “Universal Female USB Charging Socket” for other devices. The PowerPlant, when I received it, came with a USB charger to charge the PowerPlant itself.The wall charger plugs right into the female mini-USB port. After the PowerPlant is all charged up, you can plug in a mini USB, or any regular USB charger. I used the PowerPlant to charge my iPhone 4S and my iPod, one right after the other and the battery juice held up for a few days.

It is quite impressive; TYLT advertises the PowerPlant as a portable charger, capable of charging a smartphone twice, as well as tablets, such as the Apple iPad. The “Flex Charging Arm” charges most phones from Blackberry’s to HTC, and holds to its name, the PowerPlant. So far, from my two weeks of everyday use, I can say that my battery has always been charged and I don’t have to worry about the PowerPlant’s battery running out of juice to charge my iPhone, so long as I charge it every few days. I’ve used other portable chargers in the past and this one by far is one of the better ones out there. Other portable chargers can only charge one or two things and is usually limited to the iPhone, however, this one comes built in with a mini-USB and allows a USB to plug in simultaneously.

Apple Issues Invitations for iPad 3 Event on March 7

On Tuesday, Apple issued invites for the long awaited iPad 3. The invite showed the iPad in use and has the following line across the bottom, “We have something you really have to see. And touch.” The event will be held at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts in San Francisco and is scheduled to begin at 10:00 AM Pacific / 1:00 PM Eastern. Rumors prior to this invitation suggested that Apple was planning to hold the event on March 7th, in line with other reports from top sources, including The Wall Street Journal. Apple is expected to introduce the new iPad 3 with a higher resolution display (likely Retina), a new A6 chip, possibly a more tapered (albeit thicker, 0.81 mm to be exact) design, and a better camera (likely in line with the iPhone 4S).

Review: UnYOUsual Custom iPhone Cases

UnYOUsual, with a rather unusual name offers custom made iPhone cases and glass panels for the iPhone. I received two units to try out from UnYOUsual, one of their GlassPic Panels as well as a Slender Case. Both of the cases allowed me to add my own image, which I believe UnYOUsual laser prints on, so its pretty permanent, no scratching or peeling. FIrst, let’s start off with the Slender Case.

UnYOUsual Slender Case

The slender case arrived packaged in a pretty cool recycled box, which appeared to be a gift box at first glance. After opening the box, I noticed the case that I custom made nestled in styrofoam packing to protect it from cracking or breaking. Upon inspecting the Slender Case and giving it a once over, I noticed that the case wasn’t made of the thick polyurethane plastic that most of these cases are made out of, but instead a slightly cheaper, lighter plastic, which gave off an excellent shine and showed the designs very well, but had me doubting its duty of protecting my iPhone, if I were to drop it.

The Slender Case is your average polycarbonate iPhone case, but what truly sets it apart is UnYOUsual’s addition of customer designs. UnYOUsual allows you to add your own custom design, however, they also have a collection of artist designs that you may also apply. Check out the Pros and cons below and other cases that UnYOUsual offers, which we’ll also look at, keep reading!

Apple Introduces New Features in iOS 5

Apple announced the future of iOS today with iOS 5, introducing the biggest part, a revamped notification system, the biggest change to the OS since iOS 3. The new system is called Notification Center and is accessed similar to Android when swiped down from the top of the screen.

Notification Center aggregates all the notifications in one spot and allows for easy access to all at one time instead of clicking each one individually. This is the first Pull Down menus we have seen in iOS and could be included to a number of features throughout. Notifications are also now on the lock screen, allowing easy access to calendar events as well as missed phone calls. Apple, aside from the major change of notifications has introduced Newsstand which allows newspapers and books to be found in one place. Other features in iOS 5 are:

Review: SkyFire for iPhone Brings Flash to iPhone, iPod touch

SkyFire, produced by Skyfire Labs, Inc. is an app that brings flash to the iPhone and iPod touch. While the app does play full flash videos on most sites on the web, there are the exceptions where video does not play. Skyfire labs has great customer service that accepts request from within the app for sites that currently don’t play videos. After receiving a request , Skyfire will do it’s best to fix the site to work on the browser. The browser works very smoothly, loading pages very quickly and efficiently. The settings in the app are spot on, giving you all controls at once with the click of 3 buttons or less. There were a couple of negative parts of the app that I felt could use a bit more work:

1) The Social Sharing and SkyBar at the bottom gave the browser a cluttered feel, and I was always fearing that I would click something that I didn’t want to click.

2) Simplicity is lacking. The multiple buttons on top should be brought down and should display in full in landscape view.

3) Allow the browser to scroll back to top with the touch of the bar up top (similiar to Safari)

4) Needs a few maintenance and stability updates (mulitple crashes since download)

Skyfire is a great replacement for Safari, if only small features could be fixed. Other than that, there are no problems and the app runs and does what it’s supposed to do. It’s a truly great app and there isn’t another application in all of the App Store that does as good a job of playing flash videos than Skyfire does. I suggest you download it, it’s definetely worth giving a try.

iPhone Rumored to Support T-Mobile’s 3G Network (and Maybe Sprint?)

Image from BGR (Boy Genius Report)

Coming out of the holiday weekend brought some interesting news about the iPhone moving to other networks. Now that the iPhone is no longer exclusive to AT&T and it’s now operating on the CDMA networks of Verizon, there is a very likely possibility that T-Mobile will be getting the iPhone as soon as this year. It has also been rumored that Apple is looking to release the long awaited white iPhone 4 this Wednesday, April 27th, 2011. Reports from Boy Genius Report as well as MacRumors point to an iPhone 4 release on T-Mobile. The pictures from a source at BGR likely confirm this possibility that Apple is curently testing a prototype dubbed, “N94″, on T-Mobiles 3G network. There is alsoa rumor floating around that soon after T-Mobile, Apple is looking to move to Sprint, which is the fourth major service provider in the US. If it does play out as rumored, the iPhone will open up to AT&T, Verizon, T-Mobile, and Sprint, giving users many more options on network providers. Check out the pics below: 

Living Earth HD for iPhone – World Clock and Weather (Review)

Living Earth HD is the last weather application that you’ll use. It brings together an alarm clock with the times of every country, and city in the world. Just input your favorites into the cue and you can easily flip through them. The live view of the earth allows you to see the Earth via satellite. The live images are updated every 3 hours. This allows you to see a great image of the planet no matter where you are. In my use of the app, I found that the alarm clock was the hidden gem of this app.

It allows you to wake up to your favorite song and plays a backup tone for several seconds in case you close the app by mistake. The UI of the app is fluid and runs smoothly on Apple’s iPad, iPhone 4, and iPod touch 4. It has a simple settings section, the live view of the earth and the only connection out of the app is a selection screen that pops up for your music. I can proudly say that this app will be replacing my bland Apple Weather application preinstalled on my iPod.

(Living Earth HD – $0.99 in App Store)

**Developer Moshen Chan provided us with a few promo codes, so if you’d like a copy of the app, leave a comment below with a real email address so that we can email you the promo code. An iTunes account is required in order to download the app.**

Three Trees for iPhone Review

Three Trees is an interesting twist on your average game and is very different than games that one normally plays. The most interesting part is the attention to detail, although the opening menu could use some work. The buttons seem unclickable. Other than that, ThreeTrees definitely fulfills it’s promise.

The game’s objective is to keep 3 three small trees alive and help them grow using air,wind and water.

If too much of these elements gets on any of the three trees, the tree will grow smaller and smaller until it dies, where you will lose the game. Overall, it was an amazing game, bringing together some aspects of nature and science in order to form a fun and captivating game!

Pros: fun game; great idea and very challenging. Keeps you trying until you beat your high score. Excellent speed and great graphics!

Cons: could use gamecenter support, a better title menu, and a little bit more gameplay (something that gives it a bit more oomph!

Rating: 4 out of 5

SkyView for iPhone Review (Give-Away)

SkyView – Explore the Universe ($0.99) by Terminal Eleven LLC is an app that puts the W in wow. It’s an augmented reality app that allows you to use your iPhone or iPod touch camera in order to view the different stars, constellations, and the a lot of information about all of the planets, the Moon, and the Sun. SkyView does this by  implementing layers of augmented reality on top of your iPhone’s live camera view so you get a 3D interactive guide to anything that you see in the sky. The layers can be adjusted in the settings so you can choose what you want to view. The application usually opens up to a Calibration screen (tested on 4th Gen iPod touch, and iPhone  3G and 4) and allows you to calibrate your camera with the app, while the location services pinpoints your location. 

Bowmaster iPhone App Review (Give-Away)

Bowmaster is truly an amazing application, specifically pioneered for the iPhone and iPad. The game’s objective is to beat a computerized player, some with very humerous names, and you must hit wooden deer, bears and foxes to rack up points. Your objective is to become the “bowmaster.” What does that mean? Well, there is a group of archers known as the Merry Five, and they battle against you . Defeat each of them twice (in order of difficulty) to become the bowmaster and have your name put with others who have completed the challenge. I can proudly say that your shot get’s much better as you play through.