Casey’s shown us the iControlPad already, but it looks like accessory heavyweight Belkin may be getting ready to throw a gaming controller of their own at the iPhone. According to TouchArcade, JoyPod would be a heck of a lot smaller than iControlPad (by covering the top and bottom, non-screen areas of the iPhone), and feature 6 front buttons (8 total), audio out, and a dock pass-through. Most importantly:
Belkin’s involvement certainly suggests that Apple will be building support into the official SDK to allow App Store games to take full advantage of these controllers.
Up until now, of course, gamers have pretty much been limited to accelerometer tilt and multi-touch based gaming on the iPhone using the accelerometer and tap/pinch/swipe screen interface, so no doubt those hungry for more traditional control schemes will welcome this news. However, since we haven’t seen anything that suggests Apple support for it in the still upcoming 2.1 firmware, JoyPod may not be landing anytime soon.
And that’s assuming Steve Jobs would ever authorize something with that many buttons…
Imagine this scenario: You’re in a hotel room and you bring your iPhone, Macbook, External Hard Drive, Camera, and another iPod cause you’re nasty..but they’re all in need of a charge. You run and send a search team for the nearest available outlet, to your utter dismay it only provides two outputs. You reason you can live without a couple of those items but then you can’t fit two clunky chargers at once. You’re left with just charging one device.
We’ve all run into hotel rooms that just don’t seem to have enough power outlets. With the Belkin Mini Surge Protector with USB that problem is pretty much solved. How does it perform?
Read on for the rest of the review!
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There are several choices for an iPhone case at the Phone Different Store. One that caught my eye was the Belkin Clear Acrylic Case ($14.95) due to its unique “kickstand”. I was very excited to see this type of case become available for the iPhone. It is perfect for setting on a tray table or on any table for that matter. But the real question is how does it hold up as a case?
Read on for the full review after the break…
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