Written by our fearless editor Shawn Blanc, Delight is in the Details is an audio book, eBook, and interview series for people who make things. The focus is on addressing the finest goal a person in our industry can have: to create substantive work that delights and excites our audience. To that end, this book bundle contains eight audio interviews with such…
Morning is an iPad app that aims to get you as informed as possible about your upcoming day, through the use of various panels of information. These include weather, reminders, commute time, news, calendar, stocks, countdown(s), and date/time. This is a fairly customizable app. There are five different color schemes to choose from, and the info panels can be arranged any way…
I'm going to let my Oklahoma bias show once again, this time with the Ruck Strap by HoldFast. Made in Tulsa, this camera strap is made of duck canvas and leather, and cleverly features a few places to keep small items. The two front pockets allow you to store credit cards, cash, memory cards, and other such things. The elastic band on…
Downcast has long been one of the most popular "podcatcher" apps for iOS (I'm more of an Instacast guy myself, but the fact remains). If you've been wishing for a Mac version of Downcast, you're in luck because it just released today. It's got all the features you'd expect, such as subscription management, importing and exporting of OPML files, auto-updating schedules, smart…
Thanks to Nate Boateng, I found out that the well-regarded Scanner Pro is on sale for $2 right now (down from $7). This app will let you scan paper documents and receipts with your iPhone or iPad camera, then send those scans off to places like Evernote and Dropbox. It even uses an algorithm to clean up the images and make them…
Yesterday, I pointed out the excellent TGT Wallet, which was mainly designed with credit cards in mind. If the items you carry around in your pocket are more of the "loose change, keys, and earbuds" variety, the versatile Box Card Case by Hard Graft ($75) might be more your style. It's the newest member of their ever-popular Heritage Collection and maintains the…
The TGT Wallet (pronounced like "tight wallet") is a great new wallet that sports a part-leather, part-elastic design. The leather is of the soft Italian variety and the elastic allows for all kinds of colorful choices to pick from. It's also very compact, despite being able to hold quite a lot of stuff. The elastic band can even snugly hold your iPhone.…
If you live in a big city where lots of people like to get around on bikes, you already know that it can be difficult to find a good space to park your own bike. Or sometimes you have to park a vehicle far away from your destination and it would help to have a small bike to finish the journey. The…
John Carey runs two of my favorite photo blogs on the internet: the ever-popular Fifty Foot Shadows and the less-known but equally-good Yesterday Was Only. The latter is a project wherein John posts lovely photographs pretty much every day, and he compiles each month's photos into a book. Each volume – priced between $13 and $16 – is a perfect coffee table…
Ember is a brand-new Mac App that wants to be your digital scrapbook. It's a beautiful app made by the same guys who made the Clear to-do list app for Mac and iOS. Even the icon is gorgeous. Browse the web, subscribe to websites, save and share images, annotate those images, post to Tumblr, and generally keep all your favorite stuff from…
Frontback is a fun, simple, and totally free iPhone app with a singular purpose: it allows you to shoot with both the front and back cameras (one after the other), combining the images into a single photo that can then be shared with friends. Not much more to say than that.
If you do a lot of camping or hiking, you should check out the Exotac Matchcap waterproof match case. It's made of aircraft-grade aluminum and can hold quite a few strike-anywhere matches. It also has several types of built-in striker surfaces and a lanyard loop for convenience. This thing is very durable, will keep your matches dry, and it even floats on…
There's a Kickstarter campaign happening right now for a product called MaCool, which is basically an insulated cooler designed to look like the original Macintosh. This thing may end up getting sued into oblivion by Apple, but I couldn't resist posting it because, well, just look at it! Now, if only it let you play Oregon Trail... Thanks, Alex!
Ohai ($5) is a journaling app developed by Steve Streza – former lead developer for Pocket – that uses the App.net API to help you track places you've been to. It's honestly a bit similar to Rego in concept, but the fact that it's built on top of App.net is pretty interesting to me.
There have been a lot of coffee makers and accessories on Tools & Toys over the years, but somehow, the Toddy Cold Brew System has never been featured (only mentioned once by yours truly). Maybe Shawn and Stephen just aren't big fans of iced coffee, but it's definitely one of my favorite things in the world, and this system is my favorite…
Summertime is in full swing, and the weather here in Oklahoma City has been quite pleasant this year, unlike previous years where it's constantly 100°F or higher. It's perfect picnic weather, and I'm considering picking up a couple of these Yield Picnic Bags. Essentially, it's a tote bag you can carry your food and/or drink with, and when you get to the…
The Nomad Key Ring Lightning Cable ($25) is a miniature cable with a lightning adapter on one end and a USB plug on the other. It attaches to your key ring so you'll always have it with you when you need it. If you don't carry keys very often but do carry a bag everywhere you go, the Nomad fits quite nicely…
IFTTT (If This Then That) is one of our favorite tools on the web. It essentially allows you to cook up "recipes" for automating actions across all kinds of web services — Dropbox, Evernote, RSS, Instagram, YouTube, Twitter, App.net, to name only a few. For example, you could make it so that every time you upload a photo to Instagram, a copy…
(Photo credit: Gannon Burgett) Thunderspace is a gorgeous new ambient-noise generator for iPhone, one that uses stereoscopic 3D audio (and occasionally even activates the camera flash) to simulate relaxing thunderstorms. There are two included "thunderstorm" tracks – Roof Garden and Waterscape – with six other tracks available for purchase within the app. Here are the IAP choices: Desert Wetlands Rainforest Moonlit Angels…
This Wednesday (July 10, 2013) is the 5th anniversary of the iOS App Store. There hasn't been any official announcement from Apple yet (Update: Now there has), but we've found that several popular developers are offering their top apps and games for free this week. If you've never gotten around to trying these out, now's your chance. We will try to keep…