While whipping round the two halls of Macworld on Tuesday, I noted some particular products that caught my eye. These are not best in show or anything as such, just the things that I found of interest to me.
Drobo were doing brisk business on their stand, selling their clever drive enclosures that will automate the process of spreading data over multiple disks. New at the show was an add-on unit that adds Gigabit Ethernet for up to two Drobos.
Circus Ponies were demonstarting version 3 of their Notebook software, a very intuitive application for making notes and clipping web, media and video information to form project references.
Incipio had a nice range of iPod cases, and some very clever ones for the iPhone with a special tab for easily removing the iPhone from the tight slip case. Also, a really great travel set for laptop users that adds short cables to the different plugs that clip to Apple’s AC adaptors – so good that Apple should license it, in my opinion!
Displaylink had a USB device that allows extra monitors to be connected to a Mac or PC – up to four at once. It is a simpler and less fiddly monitor connection than mini-DVI, and works better with projectors for presentations.
Fabrik/G-Tech had portable hard drives in robust, aluminium enclosures styled like little Mac Pros. They have a dual-drive RAIS option, and all of the units were very well built and powered by the Firewire bus with no AC adapter required.
NLU had their Bodyguardz for iPhone – a clear plastic covering of very tough plastic. Unlike competing products, the Bodyguardz is not patterned or mottled, but goes on so clear as to be virtually invisible.
Moshi had some really neat new products – a fold-up laptop cooling stand with built-in USB hub, and a tiny anodised aluminium memory card reader.
Booq had their range of high-quality bags on display. I have a second hand custom Booq for my 12″ Powerbook that gets positive comments whenever I use it, so I was glad to see their latest product lines that fit all of Apple’s current laptops (with the exception of the new MacBook Air, obviously).
Belkin had the Podcast Studio, a battery dock that adds XLR microphone inputs, studio-class portable mics and line mixing controls to an iPod.
MacHeist were on site with their fabulous bundle of apps for $49. Included among the 12 apps so far are such useful apps such as the 1Passwd password manager, Snapz Pro X for grabbing screen and video shots, Taskpaper (which I reviewed as a 4 out of 5 for MyMac recently), Appzapper for uninstalling software and the game Wingnuts 2. Some of the proceeds go to charity, and it is a fabulous deal with little of the ‘filler’ apps some bundles often provide.
I’ll be looking to review some of these items over the next few months – let me know here in the comments or by email if there are any particular aspects of these items that intrigue you.
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