Apple Investigates Carbon Fiber Cases

A recent Apple hire suggests carbon fiber may make it into a future Apple product. Wonder if carbon fiber is lighter and less dent-prone than aluminum — it’s used in bike frames and baseball bats after all. Our iPad has two dents from droppage, and the MacBook Air has a thin slice in the lower left corner; cause unknown.

File Under “Replaced By Smartphone”

Flip video cameras are dead. A Flip video camera was on my tech toy wish list a few years ago only to be replaced by the iPhone 4. Other gadgets have fallen off the list — don’t think I’ll be getting a new point-and-shoot camera or a Nintendo DS any time soon. The best video/camera/music player/eBook reader/portable game device/DVD player is simply the one you’re carrying.

Time for a new acronym: JGASA = Just Get A Smart Phone Already.

Adobe Photoshop on iPad

What with Flash’s diminishing relevance the Adobe oil tanker is slowly moving in reaction to the “post-PC” era. Three new iPad apps (Color Lava, Eazel, Nav) work with Photoshop to turn your iPad into a touch-screen peripheral. There’s also a Photoshop SDK to allow developers to create original iPad/iPhone apps that work with Photoshop.

This is as smart strategy, done correctly this could establish Photoshop if not other CS apps as a new development platform, and ideally, a new use case for iOS devices in businesses — imagine designers requesting iPads along with their semi-annual obligatory CS upgrade.

But of course, Adobe must execute on this lofty vision — and based on past gripes, bugs, and bloaty cruft my expectation bar is set rather low.

Magic Bar and Magic Charger

Mobee’s Magic Bar wirelessly charges a keyboard and Magic Trackpad, and their Magic Charger is a possible solution to the battery-muching Magic Mouse. Yes, am so lazy replacing rechargeable batteries is too much of a chore (first world problem).