There have been many Chess games available for iPhone since the App Store opened up a few years ago, but most of them aren't really designed with the iPhone's screen in mind. Rather than taking advantage of the available screen real estate, they're typically cluttered with ugly and unnecessary UI. Not so with Tall Chess, released only a few days ago. All…
Today seems to be the day for somewhat unusual iPhone stands. The SETA Smartphone Stand is an interesting Kickstarter project that proposes to hold your phone in place using a "NanoSuction" surface. You push your phone against the suction pad to hold it in place, and pull or twist to remove it — no sticky residue involved. It doesn't have its own…
While some think heavily-filtered photos are so 2009, the guys over at Realmac Software disagree. Which is great, since their new, $2 photo app is pretty awesome. While it packs just 8 filters, the interface crazy fast and very clean. Sharing to Camera Roll and Photo Stream is easy, as is sending the photo to Instagram or straight on to Twitter or…
Limelight for iPhone is a gorgeous new app for tracking movies. You can list movies in two ways: "Watched" and "To Watch". Pretty self-explanatory there. You can rate movies on the "Watched" list, and it will display them in order of rating. Both libraries appear as shelves of beautiful movie artwork, as you can see in the first panel below: Adding movies…
The Classic Station by iSkelter ($40) is a handsome, handcrafted bamboo dock/caddy that will seat just about any smartphone, along with some of your smaller personal items. There is no dock connector, nor any wires to fuss with, just a nice little solution for keeping your workspace tidy and beautiful.
I keep a Field Notes notebook in my back right pocket at all times, with my iPhone 5 riding solo in my front left pocket. But what if I could combine these items? Enter DODOnotes. With 30 tear-off sheets of Mohawk Superfine paper nestled in US-made bookcloth fabric, the DODOnotes' trick is right up front — where an iPhone-shaped tray and elastic…
This one's for the musicians out there. ScoreCleaner Notes allows you to play, hum, or even whistle a tune, and it will write out the musical notation for you, including the correct time signatures. It can even pick apart multiple voices at once and arrange them in the proper order of lead voice, second voice, and bass line. After these notation sheets…
Yesterday, the developers of the Hueless photography app released an update that added the ability to save photos in Lossless TIFF format and max-quality JPEG, as well as improved shutter response. After seeing this update and running a quick search on Tools and Toys, I was somewhat surprised to see that Hueless has never been mentioned around here before. This app has…
I must be on a gaming kick this week, because I've got another one to talk about. This one is called Star Command, and it's essentially a Star Trek-influenced RPG simulator for iPhone and iPad. You start off by designing a Captain avatar and a small ship, then you build different types of rooms on the ship and staff each one with…
Most gamers need no introduction to Bastion, being one of the most critically-acclaimed games of the last few years and all. In case you haven't heard of it though, it's an adventure game where you play as The Kid, who wakes up after some kind of catastrophic event and must navigate through a series of floating ruins, fighting monsters along the way.…
The developers of the popular Screens VNC client for iOS recently released another great utility called Mini Display. The two apps are similar in that they both require a free Mac app to be running, but what Mini Display does differently is turn your iOS device into an external display for the Mac (as long as they're on the same WiFi network),…
WWDC is right around the corner, which likely means San Francisco will soon be seeing a sudden influx of international tech enthusiasts. Many of them will be buying drinks for one another, and they might want to keep track of exactly how much money they're losing spending back home. Instead of doing mental calculations on the spot, they should use the Currency…
The Bowers & Wilkins 'zeppelin' family of speakers has always been a popular lineup, and for good reason. Each one has an interesting design, they all sound fantastic, and B&W continually adds awesome new features with each revision. The latest model is the Z2, which resembles their previous Zeppelin Mini model from a few years ago, but now has a Lightning dock…
If you've got an SSD-equipped Mac, you know the pain juggling files can be. Most MacBook Air users I know have at least one external drive for stuff they can't fit on their machines. The Seagate Wireless Plus drive takes that concept and applies it to iOS devices. Put the 1TB drive on your network, fire up the free Seagate Media app…
There are far too many iPhone cases to choose from in the world, and most of them are pretty similar to one another anyway. I prefer something a little more unique and interesting, like the Twig Case. Each one is made of a dense, durable paper composite called Richlite, amounting to about 100 sheets of paper per case. It doesn't sound like…
I've been passively on the lookout for a decent iPhone bike mount, and the Quad Lock looks to be an excellent choice. You can attach it to your bike's frame using the provided pair of rubber o-rings if you're going to be moving the mount between bikes a lot, or you can use zip-ties for a more permanent mount. Once the mount…
I use the built-in Reminders app in iOS all the time, but unfortunately it doesn't like to save locations for later use. Reminder+ is an app that aims to remedy this problem by letting you save as many locations as you want, for as long as you want. Any place you frequent can be added to your list, and then later added…
Flipboard is ubiquitous enough that it needs no introduction, so I'll get straight to the point. They released version 2.0 of the app a couple days ago, and it comes with several neat new features, the biggest of which is the ability for users to create their own magazines that others can subscribe to. Any article you come across can be added…
I've been a big fan of Calcbot for a long time, but there's always room for new calculator apps. An interesting one I just came across is Llumino, which somehow manages to combine simple calculations with a dance floor aesthetic. Tap the buttons, and the area around them will light up in a psychedelic way. The calculation area is also quite animated,…
While iPhone car mounts I've used in the past have been flimsy and weak, this $50 suction cup smartphone mount doesn't look like either. Built with "Marine-grade" aluminum and plastic, this mount comes with a lifetime warranty. The 4 pressure points that hold the phone are spring-loaded, so they're tight, but easy to pull off. The suction cup is designed to stick…