Kensington's Sound-Amplified Car Mount for iPhone

The Kensington Windshield/Vent Car Mount with Sound Amplified Cradle for iPhone is a car mount that's specifically designed to be used with a turn-by-turn GPSnavigation app. What makes this mount special is that the cradle acoustically amplifies your iPhone's speaker so that GPS instructions can be heard clearly. It comes with a windshield mount, vent mount, and four sets of rubber inserts that work with any iPhone, with or without a case.

There are two separate mounting types which the cradle can be attached to. Both the windshield and vent mounts hold the cradle quite well, but I definitely recommend the windshield mount over the vent mount.

The windshield mount uses a lockable suction cup that's incredibly secure and simple to attach to your windshield. I like it because it uses a flexible neck which bends at any point and stays there relatively well. This means that you can easily adjust it to the perfect viewing angle.

The vent mount securely hooks onto most air vents with spring-loaded clips. There is one ball joint that allows you to change the viewing angle of the cradle and it's surprisingly rugged. Most vent mounts don't work well but this one is solid. Again, I recommend the windshield mount, but if you can't mount something to your windshield, it works quite well.

The cradle has been designed to accommodate the iPhone, iPhone 3G, and the iPhone 3GS without any adjustments. A spring-loaded clamp holds your device securely and only requires one hand to insert or remove your phone. Kensington also touts the cradle's ability to hold an iPhone even when it's in a case. I found that my iPhone sat comfortably in the cradle even while it was in an Incase Slider. Just be advised that each case is different so your mileage may vary.

The cradle also rotates 180 degrees for landscape viewing in either direction. The actual rotation mechanism seems to be sturdily made since it's part of the cradle, not the mounting armatures.

Of course the most important feature is the sound amplification. I found that the cradle does, in fact, increase speaker volume enough to hear GPS instructions; even on the highway. It does this by acoustically redirecting speaker audio through the bottom of the cradle and out the left side. Rubber inserts sized to fit the iPhone 3GS, iPhone 3G, and iPhone with or without a case are provided to create a seal around the speaker. These worked pretty well with my Slider, although you'll get the best sound amplification without a case.

For those who plug their iPhone into their car's stereo system, this mount also allows access to both the dock connector and headphone jack.

Overall, the Kensington Windshield/Vent Car Mount with Sound Amplified Cradle for iPhone is an incredibly well made car mount. I can definitely tell that Kensington put a lot of thought into this product. It's a must-have for anybody with a GPS navigation app on their iPhone. I highly recommend it.

Price: $ 39.99
View the product's website here.

How To: Create Free Ringtones For Your iPhone

Don’t you love paying for ringtones of songs you have already purchased? Yeah, me neither. That is why I have discovered multiple methods for creating free ringtones. Some methods are simpler than others, although some are more customizable too. Check this article out and find out for yourself what method is right for you!

1st method - iToner 2

This method includes software that is only available on the Mac called iToner 2. Although this software is $15, it is the simplest method I have found. The software has a free fully functional trial available for 30 days so check it out!

iToner is very simple to use. Just open it, drag a music file in the window, and hit sync. There are also options to trim the song or to sync an iTunes playlist to iToner so any song you drag in that playlist will be synced as a ringtone.

My most favorable feature in this program is its ability to sync full length songs as a ringtone as well as trimming to whatever length you want. If anyone uses there iPhones alarm clock to wake up in the morning, they know how annoying it can be to wake up to a 30 second music clip repeating over and over again!



2nd Method - GarageBand

Though this is not as simple as iToner, it comes with every mac. The trick to making ringtones in GarageBand is to keep the audio in the timeline less than 40 seconds. Heres How.

• Launch GarageBand and create a new project. The tempo, signature, and bpm settings don’t matter so much if your just dragging an audio file in to convert to a ringtone.

• Create a new track in the timeline. Unless your planning on writing your own ringtone with software instruments, Just click Real Instrument and click Create

• Search for the desired audio file on your computer and drag it into the previously made timeline. From here you can navigate to the menu bar and select Share>Send Ringtone to iTunes.

Note: If your audio file is more than 40 seconds long you will receive a message saying your song exceeds the 40 second time limit. From here you can click adjust and GarageBand will automatically place a cycle timeline on your track. To adjust this timeline, simply drag the ends of the yellow bar to the right and left. Remember, this track shows what part of the song is playing and has to be less than 40 seconds

• Once the cycle bar is set to less than 40 seconds and in the position you want your ringtone to start, you can again go to the menu bar and select Share>Send Ringtone to iTunes. This will convert the song, open iTunes and play a preview of the song for you. The next time you sync your iPhone, your ringtone will be on there.

note: If you want your ringtone to fade in and out, just adjust the track volume to fade in and out at the start and end of the cycle bar.

3rd Method - audiko.net

I’ll bet you thought I forgot about you iPhone users with Windows! Well here’s a web app that can be used for windows and mac through a web browser and is absolutely free and simple. audiko.net allows you to upload songs from your hard drive, trim the song with fade ins and fade outs, and download the ringtone. its a 3 step process and requires no tutorial. Also they have a library of pre made ringtones you can download for free.

4th Method - iTunes

Yes that’s right, you can create free ringtones just using iTunes although there are a series of steps to complete the ringtone making process. An earlier post details the steps in creating ringtones via iTunes.

These are just a few methods I have found handy while enjoying my free ringtones. How about you? Please submit your vote and tell us which method you like best.




What Method For Creating Free Custom Ringtones Do You Prefer

(polls)

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Original story by AppAdvice.com | How To: Create Free Ringtones For Your iPhone

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App Review: Babelshot for iPhone 3GS

For quick text translation, I usually jump on Safari but today, there’s an app for that! Introducing Babelshot.

Babelshot by Codium Labs LLC

Babelshot for iPhone 3GS is a shoot-to-translate application that makes use of the iPhone 3GS camera. Any text in any language that you want translated is done quickly and easily through the app using a built-in OCR engine and Google Translation services (Internet connection required).

Translation

Using Babelshot, you take a photo of a block of text and then choose the source language and the language that you want the text translated. Before translation, the app allows you to adjust the area of translation by using a cropping tool in case your area of text is larger or smaller.

After the text is translated, you can easily swap translation languages using a Swap button and also archive the translation session for later use.

However, using the camera to take photos of text is one method of translation. The app also allows you to manually type in or paste in text without the need of the camera. In this case, the app is a 2-in-1 translation service.

I tested the app using a few different methods of translation such as from a newspaper, regular white paper, an Internet Browser and a street sign. Overall, I would give it about 75% accuracy as it translated most words correctly, but some were either missed or not translated at all, even though the word should have been translated.

You can check out a video of the app in action here.

Language Support

When using the camera for translation, Babelshot supports the following languages:

Afrikaans, Albanian, Catalan, Croatian, Czech, Danish, Dutch, English, Estonian, Finnish, French, Galician, German, Hungarian, Icelandic, Indonesian, Italian, Latvian, Lithuanian, Malay, Maltese, Norwegian, Polish, Portuguese, Romanian, Slovak, Slovenian, Spanish, Swahili, Swedish, Tagalog, Turkish.

When using manual input for translation, Babelshot supports the same languages as above, plus:

Arabic, Belarusian, Bulgarian, Chinese, Greek, Hebrew, Hindi, Japanese, Korean, Macedonian, Persian, Russian, Serbian, Thai, Ukrainian, Vietnamese.

Upcoming Updates

Since this type of app can always benefit from fixes and refinements, the following updates are coming:

• Adding camera input for more languages
• Improving speed and accuracy of text recognition
• Optimizing text selection work flow
• Landscape mode

Overall, Babelshot delivers a quick method for translation services on the iPhone 3GS. The navigation menus are quick and intuitive and it is simple to swap between languages. The translated text was not always completely accurate but this is something that will likely improve with increased usage over time. The supported languages is what you would expect from a translation application with more coming in the future.

Babelshot is scored a 4 out of 5.

Babelshot is available on the iTunes App Store for $1.99.

Hindi,Japanese, Korean, Macedonian, Persian, Russian, Serbian, Thai, Ukrainian, Vietnamese.

TomTom Car Kit Now Available In U.S. Apple Store

The TomTom car kit has appeared once again on the online Apple Store for $119.95, this time in the US store. The kit not only puts your iPhone within easy view and of the driver, but also enhances its GPS capabilities. It also provides hands-free calling and an audio-out connector to plug it into your car's audio system, though the cable is not included.


You can get the TomTom car kit in the US Online Apple Store for $119.95.

Review: AppBox Pro

Overview

Tired of having all of those different apps filling your valuable iPhone screen space? All of them just doing a specific task, and that’s it. Well in comes AppBox Pro.

AppBox Pro is one app that includes 18 apps within it. It truly is the swiss army knife of apps providing the abilities of many individual apps. Now you can track you battery life, calculate tips, use a flashlight, and so much more all within one app.

Features

The apps included are: Battery Life, Clinometer, Currency Converter, Dashboard, Date Calculator, Days Until, Flashlight, Holidays, Loan Calculator, Period Calendar, Price Grab, Random Number Generator, Ruler, Sale Price, System Info, Tip Calculator, Translator, Unit Converter, Web Apps link (including google books and Collapse on the screen).

You can choose which apps to include, and rearrange them in whatever order you prefer.

The Good

The best aspect of App box Pro is that you don’t need to have a bunch of apps to do separate things. You don’t need a separate tip calculator, unit converter, battery life checker, flashlight app, etc. Finally everything is in one place you can put on your home screen, and have it all with one tap.



The user interface is simply gorgeous with a black background, and neon app icons. Each icon is designed well to easily identify what you’re looking for. Once you’re within one of the apps the overarching color scheme is maintained.

Everything just seems to be polished extremely well, to make it easy to interact with which is the ultimate goal. Some apps are just information, but the ones that require input keep it simple. A number pad is at the bottom, and some include the basic pop-up scroll wheel.

The entire set of apps do a great job of what they set out to do. When you want to translate something, measure something, or calculate a sale price it all works well.

As special stand out apps I really liked the translator, random number generator, level (in the clinometer), and the battery life analyzer. Really though I liked all of them since they filled many needs all in one app.

The Bad

Nothing much to dislike with this app. A minor complaint is that the individual apps aren’t as good as the stand alone ones from other developers. This is a fact, but did you expect them to? If you want a super powerful version of any of the individual apps, then go get it.

I’ve never really needed any of these apps that much, only occasionally. App Box Pro is perfect for those situations. Some of the apps are unnecessary, and not as robust as standalone, so it depends how much you use these certain apps.

The Verdict

App Box Pro is one of the best apps in the App Store. It’s an outstanding idea to compile apps into one, and it has been executed wonderfully.

Hopefully this becomes a trend, and we can see more apps combine the features of standalone apps. Lets cut the clutter. It would be great to have sports, weather, and movies in one app rather than too many features in each stand alone one.

The app works flawlessly, looks great, and finally can clean up your iPhone space. Say goodbye to your tip calculator, flashlight, unit converter, battery life meter (insert app name here). App Box Pro should be on every iPhone, and is an easy must buy.

Don’t Use Just Any Wireless While Using Your iPhone - Unless You Want To Put Yourself At Risk

You’re probably familiar with this Pop-up. It might make you think “why don’t I use this open Wifi, it’s faster than 3G and I’m saving on my Data plan”. Well, you might want to reconsider. Whenever you’re on a network, especially on open Wireless Networks, where all the data you exchange with your iPhone is being sent all around you for everyone to read. I decided to look into it and see how much information could be available if someone sneaky were looking for it.

I downloaded a couple of freely available applications on my laptop, fired them up, connected my iPhone to my local wireless network and innocently started to use my iPhone like I do everyday. I checked my email, chatted with a friend, went on a couple of websites and placed a couple of calls via VoIP…

Web Browsing / POP Email / Some Apps

Ninety percent of web browsing goes through insecure channels (like when you see a website that doesn’t start with “https://”). Someone just “listening” to the network will be able to see this picture you’re downloading, this article you’re reading or what you’re saying on AIM . This can even be done directly from another iPhone. Same with unencrypted email addresses (mostly POP protocol). When Mail.app is gonna fetch new data, the password stored on your phone is sent in clear text and anybody can see it.

Voip

When you place a call using a VoIP app on a wireless network, the communication is sent as clear data. It means that someone listening to the connection will be able to hear your conversation. When I tried I thought it’s actually pretty funny to listen to yourself talk… Or is it scary ?

Good point for Skype which uses a secure protocol, so no worries on this side.

This is where you stand if the person snooping around isn’t too skilled or wants to stay completely undetected. This kind of “passive” listening is practically undetectable. Imagine although that you’re unlucky enough to be watched by someone with a little bit more experience (I’m talking of a couple of hours of online research top).

Secure Websites / Imap Email (like Gmail and Mobile Me)

This is very troubling for many people. When using unencrypted services, you know what to expect. On the other hand, when you’re using a secured website or service, you might be brought to believe that you’re safe. You’re not.

By implementing a simple Man-in-the-middle attack, my system was able to register all of my passwords, including those from my Gmail and Mobile Me accounts. It means that if somebody was actually trying this on you this morning when you were sipping your Latte at Starbucks while checking emails on your iPhone, he could track you all day using the locate my iPhone feature.

One hitch tho, the iPhone didn’t let this happen without any complaints. I got an error message while checking my mail.app

I also had safari warn me at one point. Maybe a little bit more informative this time.

Would anybody bother worrying about this ? No. Most people just click OK and continue, those messages show up 95% of the time because there’s been some kind of error. Well you might have just given your password to some punk.

You’re probably asking yourself, what can I do about it ? Here are some basic security advice for your daily iPhone usage :

1. Try avoiding WiFi networks (Especially public ones, but you might also be at risk home)
2. Use a VPN when possible
3. Don’t click Accept or Continue if you cross one of these errors

Anyway, the odds of this happening to you are low, well, unless you’re using your iPhone for business.

It isn’t really new that the iPhone creates numerous privacy issues but Apple could easily fix this by making the messages a litle more self-explanatory or by simply forcing mobile safari to handle certificates over 3G.

All the information provided in this article is here for an educational purpose only, don’t try this on anybody, you could end up in jail.

Free iPhone Wallpaper: 70+ Creative 3d Designs

http://designrfix.com/freebies/free-iphone-wallpaper-70-creative-3d-designs