design - Macenstein

Flexible smartphone prototype must have multi-million dollar iPhone case industry crapping their pants

Imagine an iPhone you could not only drop without fear, but also accidentally send through the washing machine and have it come out no worse for wear (albeit cleaner). That appears to be the idea behind this super flexible “paper computer” being shown off by Human Media Lab. While the idea of a paper-thin display sounds cool, the below video showing the use of “Bend Gestures” on a flexible, iPhone-like device looks slow and annoying as hell compared to... Read More

OK, Let’s admit it. This thing is designed for one purpose, and one purpose only

Ok, maybe TWO purposes. I would imagine the buyer of this “hands-free iPad holder” would meet one of two criteria: 1) You are a woman (who likely resembles the woman pictured here, but with far less clothes) who needs to hold her iPad 2 steady while performing some beautiful, sensual, tantalizing act via FaceTime. 2) You are a man looking to to hold his iPad 2 (and free up his hands) while performing some sort of horrible, disgusting, unmentionable act while watching... Read More

Submit your iPhone location data and help create some beautiful crowd-sourced art

crowdsourced iPhone data from Frankfurt For those of you are NOT flipping out about the iPhone tracking data being “crowd-sourced” by Apple, there’s a new project called “CrowdFlow” being developed by Michael Kreil, Lorenz Matzat, and Dr. Huxorn that allows you to submit your iPhone location log file in order to create a visualization of how various wifi and cell networks are distributed all over the world. The results, as you can see, are actually... Read More

Steve Jobs, frozen in carbonite iPhone case feels like something I should want, but don’t

Society6 is selling a “Steve Jobs in Carbonite” iPhone case for $35 that in theory is such a perfect geeky combination that I SHOULD want to own it. But something about it just feels so very creepy… I’m not sure I would want to touch it, let alone hold it really close to my cheek. Still, the idea IS oddly awesome. If the iPhone case isn’t your thing, it’s also available as a decal, art print, and T-Shirt. Thanks to faithful Macenstein reader... Read More

MIC releases yet another “Get it before Apple legal Attacks” goodie

M.I.C, the fine folks who released that amazingly detailed Steve Jobs Action figure, which Apple legal subsequently (allegedly) had pulled, and which M.I.C. subsequently began reselling after adding a ninja hood and throwing stars (I was able to snag two, in fact), is at it again, this time releasing an external USB hub that not only goes by the Apple-sounding name of “iHub”, but also features an illuminated Apple logo. In fact, at first glance, the only real tip-off... Read More

How we got the “Command” symbol

I was in need of the ⌘ symbol for a top secret project today, and not knowing the proper Unicode combo by heart, I fired up the old character palette to copy it. While there, I noticed that while all the other symbols had the expected names (“Erase to the Left”, “Upwards White Arrow”, etc.) that for some reason, Apple was calling our beloved “Command Symbol” “Place of Interest Sign” instead. Since that name is not nearly... Read More

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