9to5Mac Reviews

I’m not normally one for hiding Apple’s gorgeous designs away inside cases, but my 11-inch MacBook Air is used almost exclusively when I’m out and about, so it does normally live in a TwelveSouth BookBook case to keep it safe on its travels. I adore that case, so persuading me to set it aside for an alternative would not be an easy task.

But I was very taken with the leather iPhone and iPad cases I recently reviewed from NY-based Burkley, so I decided to give one of the company’s snap-on leather MacBook Air covers a try. It currently offers these for the MacBook Air only (both 11- and 13-inch) – though it does also have a non-snap-on variation for the 12-inch MacBook.

Burkley likes to mix up its leather offerings for each product, with the Antique Camel Leather I liked last time not available for the MacBook, so I tried the Special Burned Tan Leather. This is a fairly standard tan color in the center, with darker burned-in edges …

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If you read our review of the ATH-M50x closed-back headphones, I made it pretty clear that I was a fan of what Audio-Technica was offering. The ATH-M50x’s are well-known for giving Beats By Dre headphones a run for their money, and at a much more affordable price.

I also had the opportunity to go hands-on with one of Audio-Technica’s newest offerings, the ATH-MSR7NC. These noise-cancelling cans differ in many ways from the company’s mainstream offering, and at more than double the price of the M50x’s, venture into more premium territory. Should you consider them?
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I’m not a major believer that Apple’s iOS devices can quite fully replace the PC and Mac in most scenarios, at least not for me, and not quite yet. I’m a keyboard fiend, using shortcuts on the keyboard almost more often than I use my mouse. These doubts were ready to be tested when I saw the progress that iOS 9 brought for third-party developers within the iOS ecosystem. With the new SDK, developers were getting the chance to integrate keyboard shortcuts into their iOS apps just like a Mac app. It was then that I knew it was time to start looking for a portable keyboard to take around with me.

This presented a new problem for me. There’s a vast amount of Bluetooth keyboards out there, and I didn’t want to just carry Apple’s bulky Bluetooth Keyboard around. I needed something with a full keyboard size, good battery life, and durability. After a few months of searching, and reluctance on spending money on what I considered an unknown, I gave up my hunt.

I nearly forgot about my keyboard journey until a few months when iClever reached out to me asking if I wanted to take a look at their iOS compatible Bluetooth accessories. I gladly accepted the offer, and began by taking a look at their Tri-Folding Bluetooth Keyboard. Everything I read online from the listing on Amazon made it seem like it could fit neatly into everything I had been previously searching for, so I was excited to get my hands on it.

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Pictured here with my iPhone SE for scale

When a well-respected audiophile brand known for an amplifier costing a cool $150k launches an AirPlay speaker system, you can be sure of two things. One, it’s going to be pretty special. Two, it’s not going to be cheap.

Sure enough, Naim’s first wireless offering – the Mu-so which I reviewed earlier this year – came in at $1500. I did, though, consider it worth every penny. It’s a true replacement for a hifi system, delivering room-filling sound that I couldn’t fault. The design is fantastic, build-quality first-rate and it offers every input source you could ever want: AirPlay, Bluetooth, UPnP, Spotify Connect, Tidal, wired Ethernet, USB, optical and 3.5mm analog.

If you liked the sound of it but thought that $1500 was pushing things a little, there’s good news and bad …

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The iPhone can shoot 4K video, and now even the iPad can shoot 4K video. Yet, there are times when you need the flexibility and power provided by a standalone camera.

Standalone cameras have inherent advantages over smartphone cameras, despite the major strides made by iPhone photography over the last few years. Even with amazing third-party apps like FiLMiC Pro, which lets you adjust things like ISO and shutter speed, you’re still stuck with a constant aperture and fixed lens.

While smartphones have replaced point and shoot cameras for a vast amount of people, standalone cameras, especially ones with interchangeable lenses like the recently-released 24MP Sony a6300, still have their place.

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As someone keen on recording voiceovers and podcasts from an iPad, I needed a Lightning-enabled microphone that could handle such a task. While it’s true that Apple’s Lightning to USB 3 Camera Adapter allows iOS to interface with a variety of microphones that it wasn’t able to before, I like the idea of keeping my setup as minimal and as dongle-free as possible.

Enter the Shure MV5 Digital Condenser Microphone. This is a MFi-certified Lightning-enabled microphone that works with the iPad or iPhone using a single microUSB to Lightning cable. By switching out the Lightning cable for a traditional USB cable, you can use the same microphone with your Mac or PC.

This microphone is a digital condenser that can be powered via Lightning or USB. It doesn’t require any special adapters or power supplies to work, just plug it in, launch an app, and start recording.

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For the last few months I’ve been using my Apple EarPods for nearly every application that requires in-ear audio. I use my EarPods for monitoring while recording voiceovers, for podcasting, and for everyday music listening.

Absurd as it is, the last pair of headphones I’d owned, a pair of Sony MDR-7506’s, ended up developing a short in the cable. I simply never got around to replacing them in a timely manner.

Audio-Technica’s ATH-M50, and the updated ATH-M50x, have received rave reviews from tech sites, bloggers and YouTubers alike. The love that these headphones receive on a regular basis convinced me that the next pair of headphones that I tried needed to be these. Do they live up to the hype?
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If a super-slim, high-quality leather iPhone case is on your wish list, the Nodus Shell case has a few perks that make it my new recommendation and go-to everyday case.

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If there was one thing I would have sworn you could never interest me in trying, it was yet another Bluetooth earpiece. There are about a zillion of these available (well, 45,322 according to Amazon), and for the most part my view has always been that if you’ve seen one, you’ve seen ’em all. Stick them in your ear and get tinny, one-eared sound that is hopeless for music but does the job for hands-free phone calls when you don’t have access to an installed setup in your car.

But I had to admit that the Schatzii Bullet is rather smaller and more stylish than most, with a cute charging system that goes some way toward making up for the somewhat limited battery-life that inevitably accompanies such a small device. It seemed worth a try …

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If you’re looking for a pair of inexpensive wireless earbuds for workouts, then Aukey’s EP-B20 Bluetooth Headset is worth a look. These aren’t the most prestigious earbuds that you can pick up, but they sound decent, feel great in ear, and come with a reasonable $27.99 price.
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Prior to the official announcement of the Apple Watch, there were multiple rumors that the device would be packed with health-related sensors. When it finally launched, however, it got just a heart-rate monitor – albeit a sophisticated one. A teardown revealed that there’s also a pulse oximeter in there, to measure oxygen saturation in your blood, but Apple hasn’t yet activated that functionality.

The apparent turnabout on sensors was explained by Tim Cook, who last year told the Telegraph that Apple wanted to avoid the need for FDA approval as a regulated health product as that would slow innovation. Any additional sensors, he strongly hinted, would be external.

If you don’t want to wait that long, however, health-tech company Azoi has launched the Kito+, a credit-card sized unit that pairs with an iPhone app to measure heart-rate, ECG, blood oxygen, respiration rate and skin temperature. Costing £99 ($145), you can either use it as a standalone unit, or slot it into the supplied iPhone case for the iPhone 6/6s/Plus …

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SanDisk’s new iXpand Lightning to USB drive introduces a new design, faster USB 3.0, and a brand new app, making it one of the most attractive offerings as far as thumb drives for your iPhone or iPad go. I’ve been testing it out to see if it’s worth a recommendation over the many competitors.

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I’ve always been intrigued about the idea of a standing desk, but I’ve never been motivated to actually try one until recently. As someone who sits at a desk and blogs about Mac and iOS for a living, I was particularly interested in seeing what type of benefits such a desk could offer.

Enter the PowerUp from UpDesk, a Nashville-based company that specializes in standing desks. The PowerUp, as its name alludes to, is a motorized standing desk that can lower and raise with the press of a button.

I’ve been testing out the PowerUp for the last few weeks, and have collected some thoughts and observations about the setup. Does it really make a difference in my day to day Mac and iOS blogging workflow?
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As I’ve detailed in the past, I originally purchased the 12.9-inch iPad Pro last November before switching to the to 9.7-inch model last month due to the lack of software optimization on Apple’s part. When I first wrote about this switch, some people were curious as to why I went with the more expensive 9.7-inch iPad Pro over the cheaper iPad Air. Well, there were too main reasons: Apple Pencil and Smart Connector.

Since the start, the potential of the Smart Connector has intrigued me. So far, we’ve only seen a few keyboard cases that take advantage of the feature, but now Logitech is announcing its LOGI Base Charging Stand with Smart Connector for iPad Pro and I’ve been using it for the past few days…

As an owner of a Late 2013 MacBook Pro with Retina Display, it’s slowly beginning to show its age. However, I find that this machine, an i7-powered rig with 16GB of RAM, is still plenty powerful for the applications that I run on a day-to-day basis. For example, with Final Cut Pro X, it’s not the fastest machine in the world (it lacks dedicated graphics), but it’s still plenty competent when it comes to editing and exporting 4K videos.

The biggest bottleneck that I’ve encountered with this computer is its storage capabilities, and that’s something I’ve been trying to deal with since the day I purchased it. With only 256 GB of flash storage, space has been hard to come by since day one. That wouldn’t be so bad if there was a way to upgrade the amount of internal storage, but sadly there has been no upgrade solution…until now.

Back in early March, OWC made a splash by announcing the very first flash storage upgrade solution the MacBook Pro as far back as the Late-2013 product cycle, and the MacBook Air, as far back as the Mid-2013 product cycle. Yes, finally! MacBook Pro and MacBook Air owners with qualifying machines can come out of the storage dark ages with OWC’s new Aura PCIe flash storage upgrade.

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Ever since the iPad Pro came out, it seemed like an obvious third-party accessory would be a case that could also hold a Pencil. However, six months on, the number of iPad Pro cases with good Apple Pencil compatibility is still pretty small. You are by no means spoilt for choice if you are looking to buy an iPad Pro case with Apple Pencil holder.

The Dux ($59.95) is a solid attempt at such a case, a lightweight 12.9-inch iPad enclosure providing some protection against drops and bangs, with an Apple Pencil holster on the side. Its simplicity is refreshing, but that brings with it some shortcomings. Read on for my review.

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One of the most interesting accessories that came out of the Consumer Electronics Show earlier this year was Griffin’s BreakSafe Magnetic USB-C Power Cable. As a 12-inch MacBook owner (and lover), one of the things I’ve missed the most with the machine is the MagSafe connection. Apple introduced the MagSafe technology 10 years ago, but thanks to the switch to a single USB-C connection, it is nowhere to be found on the ultra-slim MacBook.

That’s where Griffin’s BreakSafe comes in the. Retailing for $39.99, the BreakSafe is a six-foot-long magnetic USB-C cable. The BreakSafe brings the laptop-saving MagSafe technology that Apple users have to love to the 12-inch MacBook. And it does it surprisingly well, but it’s not perfect…

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The KEF Egg digital wireless speaker system certainly lives up to its name. The shape of the speakers are a peculiar half-egg shape that make you question whether or not you should take them seriously.

A quick listen, and that question is answered with authority. Despite the peculiar look, these speakers mean business in the sound department.

Not only do these speakers sound good, but they also work well in a variety of different environments and with a variety of sources. KEF Egg is a Bluetooth speaker, a Hi-Fi USB speaker, and features traditional optical input as well. This means that the Egg works well in a bedroom, an office environment, or even in the living room.

At $499, these speakers are anything but cheap, but if you’re searching for a pair of flexible speakers possessing high-end sound, then the KEF Egg might be worth saving up for.
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I love the concept of streaming music around the home. There are a lot of great wireless Bluetooth speakers for wireless music on the move, but it’s still unclear what to choose for a static home environment. Apple’s answer is AirPlay, but it has flaws: no multi-room support from iOS devices, limited adoption by speaker manufacturers, and spotty reliability at best.

I’ve been trying an AirPlay alternative, called Play-Fi, which is a competing industry technology for home Wi-Fi music streaming from DTS. Specifically, I tested the Definitive W7 wireless speaker which integrates Play-Fi. Read on for my review  ….

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From iPhone 4 and beyond, I’ve never skipped out on buying a flagship iPhone. The white AT&T iPhone 4 in May 2011 was my first model, then iPhone 4s in November a month after its launch. Starting with iPhone 5, I’ve bought every flagship iPhone on day one (even camping out in line overnight at least twice). I pre-ordered the off-cycle release iPhone SE last month and switched from the top-of-the-line iPhone 6s Plus. I fully reserve the right to change my mind between now and September, but my experience with the iPhone SE so far and the current crop of iPhone 7 rumors has me thinking I just might hop off the upgrade train for the first time. Here’s why:

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I’m a fairly tough sell when it comes to iPhone and iPad cases. I’ve mostly not used a case on my iPhone, and my iPad lives uncased at home and attached to my Brydge keyboard when on the move. But I had to admit that the cases NY-based Burkley had on offer appeared to live up to their claimed ‘premium leather’ label, so I decided to check them out.

The Antique Camel Leather looked particularly attractive, so I tested cases for the iPhone 5/5S/SE and iPad Air 2/9.7-inch Pro. For the Watch, the only matching bands were Hermès-style ones – which is not my thing at all – so I tried the Sacco Tan one instead …

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