I was contacted several days ago by a company who wanted my opinion on their iPad Accessories. I have now received some of their accessories and thought it would be good to give my feedback, incase you’re in need of accessories for your new iPad product.

The accessories I received were from iPad Covers and I am reviewing the Flexishield Skin and Flip Case.

First of all I will start off with the Flexishield Skin. It is made from a tough gel – It’s very flexible and feels quite strong. This should mean that it will last for a long time. It currently retails for £9.95, which is actually a pretty good price to stop the back of your iPad from getting damaged. Also, the size of it is very good as it fits the iPad perfectly.

Probably the best feature of the Flexishield Skin is that you still have full functionality when using it. This is because at the bottom of the case, there are small gaps which allows you to plug in a charger and headphones and still make full use of the iPad with it on.

In my opinion, there is only one downside to this product. Unfortunately, it only protects the back of the iPad which leaves the front of the iPad wide-open. Luckily, Mobile Fun also sell a screen protector separately which should prevent this from happening so it isn’t that much of a problem.

Now let’s take a look at the second product, the Flip Case.

After my first glance at this product, I could tell that this case was of a good quality. The case is made of a good quality leather which feels very durable. Retailing for just £5 more than the Flexishield Skin (£14.95), this is definitely the case to buy if you’re looking for one.

The case has a small magnetic strap which keeps the case closed, but once removed, the case flips open to unveil the iPad. Again, your iPad will fit perfectly into this case. It will also be very secure because of the very protective leather covering the back AND the front.

One very clever and unique feature about this case is that it provides small pockets inside of the case. You could use this to hold items such as business cards or bank cards, which is definitely very useful for those people who have more items to store.

As with the Flexishield Skin, this case also provides unrestrictive access to your iPad due to the small gaps at the bottom, which allow you to charge your iPad as well as having headphones plugged into it.

In conclusion, if you’re looking for an iPad cover or case, you should definitely consider either one of these products. The Flip Case is definitely my favourite of the two and I will be using it myself, but the Flexishield Skin is also a very good product at a slightly lower cost.

Hi everyone,

My Web Host had a server problem which lead to me losing ALL of my data. For that reason, I had to revert to an old backup made last month, which means that quite a lot of comments and posts will currently be missing.

I will do my best to retrieve the posts that were lost, unfortunately the comments will be lost, however.

If you made an important comment anytime after the 19th April 2010, please feel free to post it again.

Thanks,
Jake.

Although quite a few iPhone users may not use tethering, some people (including me) do. Tethering is the process of sending the internet connection from the iPhone to a computer (PC or Mac) for the computer to use. For example, if you’re on holiday and wish to use the internet, you could use tethering to send the 3G connection from the iPhone for your laptop to use. The main problem with tethering is that on quite a few networks, including the one I’m on, make you have to pay for it. Personally, I refuse to pay for it and thus I created this guide to show you how you can set it all up completely free of charge!

Now this method is a bit risky so be cautious when use it, and use it at your own discretion.

The first step in this guide is to generate a mobileconfig file. This is a hack file which installs on your iPhone to enable this tethering support without any payment required. Unfortunately, you have to generate one yourself since each one is different depending on your phone network. However, it’s easy to do so. Simply go to MobileConfig Generator. It’s probably best to select the option to e-mail it to you, with an e-mail address that you can access on your iPhone. That makes it much easier to install.

Once you’ve sent it to your e-mail address through that website, go into your iPhone, download your e-mails and then open up the attachment. Now you should have the option to install the profile. Install it and ignore the warnings it gives you. After you’ve done it, reboot your iPhone.

Now, this is the part when you setup the free tethering for your iPhone. Once your iPhone has booted back up, go into Settings –> General –> Tethering. Very easy to do from here, simply enable the tethering.

The final step is to prepare your computer. There are two ways you can use tethering – Via USB or via bluetooth. Personally, I prefer to use USB because it should be faster than bluetooth for obvious reasons, but I’ll explain both.

If you wish to use USB, simply connect your iPhone to your computer with the Apple connection wire. From here, your computer should detect it as a new internet network. I’m not totally sure on how it works on Windows, but at least on my Macbook Pro it managed to find it and I simply enabled the network and it started working. Once you’ve done this, tethering should now be fully working!

If you wish to use bluetooth, you need to enable the bluetooth on your iPhone first of all. You can do this in the iPhone settings. Then, you need to enable the bluetooth on your computer. Afterwards, on your computer, search for your iPhone device and try to connect to it. I can’t really give a guide to this as it’ll be different with every computer, but once you’ve connected via bluetooth, you should be able to get the tethering working.

In conclusion, if you wish to use tethering on your iPhone for free, this guide should work very well. I followed the same process and it worked wonders for me, so it should also work for you without problems.

Well it’s taken Apple a long time to finally announce the prices of their latest product the Apple iPad, for the United Kingdom. The iPad has been released for over a month in the United States now and has been a huge success, which has unfortunately led to the delay of the iPad’s worldwide launch. Luckily, it seems Apple now have enough supplies to meet worldwide demand!

On the 28th May, the iPad is to be released in nine countries – Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Spain, Switzerland and of course the United Kingdom. Pre-orders for the iPad will start on the 10th May in all of these countries, so it’s recommended that if you’re interested in purchasing one that you pre-order on this date because demand is expected to be high to match the success in the United States.

Apple have also planned to release the iPad in more countries in July – Including Austria, Belgium, Hong Kong, Ireland, Luxembourg, Mexico, Netherlands, New Zealand and Singapore. No specific dates regarding pre-orders or the release dates have been announced for these countries as of yet.

In the United Kingdom, the prices were indeed announced. They’re fairly high prices for what it actually is. Let’s take a look at the prices:

Wi-Fi Model

• 16GB Model – £429
• 32GB Model – £499
• 64GB Model – £599

3G Model

• 16GB Model – £529
• 32GB Model – £599
• 64GB Model – £699

If you’re wanting the 3G model, you’ll also have to pay the monthly data plan from your provider. In the United Kingdom, you’ll have to choose from Orange, O2 and Vodafone – But none of them have provided pricing information on their data plans as of yet.

In conclusion, if you’re wanting to buy an iPad, you won’t have to pay exceptionally high prices but the price is still pretty big – For the same amount of money you could purchase a reasonably-powerful laptop. It does depend on what you want to use it for, though.

Recently, I managed to collect the money to buy a nice new laptop. What did I choose to buy? The Macbook Pro of course! It just arrived today so I thought I’d write a review on it, to allow you to decide whether you should buy one or not. Just to note, I am writing this review whilst on my Macbook Pro.

For those of you with curious minds, I shall list the specifications:

2.53Ghz Core 2 Duo Processor
15.4 inch Display
250GB Hard Drive
256MB Graphics

Yeah, it is the old version. I thought that the old one would be fine for me since the new ones really don’t have much changes. Also to note, this is my first Mac.

Now let’s take a look at the first aspect of it – The cost. Most people who have looked to buy a new laptop have seen the price of the Macbook Pro, scaring them off. I do agree, the price of the Macbook Pro is staggeringly high as with all of the Mac range. For most people, the Macbook Pro is out of their budget. Not only do Apple rip you off with the main product, but accessories are also very expensive. For example, my Macbook Pro came with a US charger (Since it’s American) so I had to buy an extra UK charger, which cost £60! Apple really need to review their pricing.

Secondly, let’s take a look at the design. This is definitely the best feature of the Macbook Pro. It looks very sleek and has been produced from a single block of aluminium, which has put a very smooth feel and look to the laptop. The display is absolutely fantastic too, the colours are very bright and look really good. It is very glossy, however, which could be a problem for some people. Another good thing about the design is the keyboard on it. It’s a very nice-looking keyboard which makes it easy to type quickly. When it’s dark, the keyboard lights up with backlit-LEDs to make sure you can still type effectively. There is also a trackpad with no buttons, which works perfectly, although it does take a bit of getting used to.

Next, let’s review the battery life. Apple claim to be able to offer around 7 – 8 hours of battery life for their 15 inch and 17 inch Macbook Pro’s. For their 13 inch Macbook Pro’s, it should be able to push up to a huge 10 hour battery life. This is a remarkable achievement. So far, my battery life doesn’t seem as high as that but it certainly is lasting a long time. The battery life is probably being reduced due to a lot of program installations, music, open applications and a movie being played. I’m very impressed with this aspect of the Macbook Pro.

Furthermore, we shall look at the packaging of the Macbook Pro. This is probably not the most important thing to look at for most people but I always like my products to be packaged nicely. I wasn’t disappointed. The packaging for the Macbook Pro is very small and is very easy to use – It looks very simple. In the package, you get the Macbook Pro (obviously), the charger, installation and backup disks, the manual, a display cleaning cloth as well as some apple stickers! These have all been packaged together very well.

In conclusion, if you’re wondering whether to invest in a Macbook Pro, I highly recommend it. The price tag is very high but it’s worth it. It’s a great looking laptop which is easy to use and lasts for a long time which you probably won’t have any issues with. One thing I have forgotten to mention is that I do recommend purchasing AppleCare with it. It’s another expensive addon but repairs on Macbook Pro’s can be expensive (Some even require a complete purchase of a new one) so in the long run, you may be saving a LOT of money.

Thank you for reading my review! If you have anything to say, feel free to use the comments section to drop me a comment.