Various external Battery Options for the Iphone....

I had a good look around Ebay the other day to see what was available for charging the IPhone/Ipod whilst away from a mains socket.
I was quite surprised at the amount of different battery options, primarily from China and Hong Kong.
Below is a list of the things I found, I've not personally bought any of them but I have bought stuff from HK before and I had no problems.

The first I came across was a simple plugin external battery designed to plug in the bottom of the IPhone/Ipod, this one has a 1000 mAH Li-ion battery.
There is also a pass through connector on the bottom so you can connect the battery / Ipod to the PC, you also charge the battery by using the Ipod sync lead and connecting it to the PC.

There were also some variations on this that were more shaped to match the IPhone/ITouch when in use. I found this available form HK and the UK for around £11. (in Black, White and Silver)
There is also a version with a slightly lower battery capacity (800 mAh) but with a solar cell built in to allow the battery to be charged whilst in the sun.


The next one I found does two jobs, it acts as a jacket with a battery, 2200 mAh, and also a stand/dock for use on the desk.
This I only found in HK for around £15 inc. Del.
Again all the charging of the Li-ion battery is done using your existing sync cable.

The next one is just a jacket that fits around the IPhone 3G and contains a 2400 mAh Li-ion battery and also a 1.5W speaker, this allows you to listen to the audio as the jacket covers up the normal audio aperture. again this battery is charged by using the IPhone/Ipod sync lead that came with your IPhone/Ipod.

This option is a bit more expensive at around £25 and can be found in HK or UK.



The last one is a leather flip case that includes a Li-ion battery within the case and a connector at the bottom.

The battery is 2100 mAh and you charge it using your sync cable, I only saw this item available from HK.


Of course there were many other types of batteries for the IPhone/Ipod including AA battery holders with the Ipod connector and all round chargers with a Li-ion battery and a kit of connectors for many different gadgets, some even have solar panels to recharge the Li-ion battery so, in theory, they should always be topped up and ready for use.

Nice little portable charger for Ipod/Iphone

I came across this Ipod/Iphone charger the other day in B&Q and after a search on Ebay I found it for £7.99 including postage, BARGAIN!
It retails for £19.99 and comes with two Energiser Lithium AA batteries.

It uses a fold out connector at the rear that forms the holder for the Ipod.

It also acts a a stand for the Ipod/Iphone whilst charging.

On the bottom it has an adjuster than alters the distance between the connector and the back of the charger so it will fit a nano all the way upto the Iphone 3G and Yes it will charge the 3G Iphone.














All in all a very nifty device that will keep you going when you're no where near a mains socket.

A few days with the ipod touch

Well after a few days with the Ipod Touch I 've really started to like it even more, I've now installed a good ebook reader which allows me to read my existing Ebooks.

The application 'Books' is not a highly polished piece of software but after the hard work getting the book from a .lit file on my PC to a HTML file on the Ipod (about 1 hr) the actual reading experience is really good, much better than MSreader on my PDA.

The steps were: -
1. convert the lit file to html using a free converter "ABC amber lit converter"
2. Remove all the
tags using search and replace.
3. Separating the whole book into chapters which speeds up the book loading, this can take 1/2 hour for a big book.
4. Get the files onto the Ipod using the Ibrickr programme.

All this was achieved an a knock down cost of £0.00.

As I've said before I don't know why Apple are not exploiting the fantastic abilities of their device, maybe they plan to in the future.....

My new Ipod Touch

Well after much agonising about whether to go for the Iphone or not it suddenly occurred to me that I could get the full experience of the Iphone without the phone bit for a lot less money by buying the Itouch.

Iphone over 18 months = £900 'ish

Ipod Touch 8GB over 18 months = £199

Well it's nearly Christmas so I chose the Itouch for a present and I must say I was absolutely amazed by this device, using is is an absolute dream.

Everything is so simple to use and setup, it detected my wireless connection and asked for the password and connected without any messing about in settings etc.

The screen is fantastic, even better than my hx4700 and I've always classed that as a great screen.

Once I'd unlocked it I got access to a huge list of third party applications, without even having to search round the net on my PC, it was all possible on the Itouch.

I installed the web mail, notes and google maps apps from the iphone so as long I as I have a WiFi connection I get my email.

I'm over the age of 40 and my eyesight is just starting to age and seeing all the text on my Imate Jamin can be a struggle and trying to increase the font size took a lot of research on the web and even then it wasn't brilliant do to the screen not handling some of the larger text very well.

Having said all that there are some issues which irk me to say the least such as the lack of memory expansion, in this day an age that is just STUPID!!!! COME on APPLE think of the consumer!

Those that like to fiddle with the settings and themes shouldn't be disappointed though as once it's jailbroken you can fiddle until your hearts content.

Another nice feature would be Bluetooth and a navigation application, with already having WiFi I wouldn't have thought it too difficult to add Bluetooth.

I think Apple missed a trick, with navigation, Bluetooth as well as the photo, video and music capabilities it would be a real killer device. (although it was probably a calculated omission)

I don't own an apple and I'm not really an apple fan but I can really say this device is a pleasure to use.

It should’ve had ……

• Incorporated IR or RF receiver so that you could use a remote without a universal dock.
• Wireless headphones option via Bluetooth or WiFi maybe
• Memory card slot.
• Some buttons on the front, at the top, to pause/play skip etc, (like the some phones have). The old ipod video with the click wheel was easy to pause/play whilst in my shirt pocket because you could press the buttons, now you have to powerup the ipod to pause etc. another reason for bullet point 1.