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At the moment there are two approaches to staying connected to your digital world while driving: a dedicated vehicle system with a permanent screen, or a phone in a car dock. (Or you could just be a dangerous jerk and use your phone in your hands while you're driving, I suppose.) JBL would like to offer a more elegant alternative: the Smartbase. This gadget combines a phone dock, wireless charger, and an external speaker for hands-free calls. Even better, it works with existing voice control and safety services - Google Now on Android and Siri on iOS.
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- By the way, you can grab the APK for HTC Car from APKMirror. It's working fine on my Nexus 6, so it should do as a standard car dock app for most phones. Nice.
At this point in my life, I never actually know where I am at any given moment. I simply trust Google Maps to tell me, and to get me home with its turn-by-turn driving directions. This kind of incredibly reckless lifestyle requires a decent car dock (like this one) and preferably a homescreen that's easy to use without taking your focus off the road. HTC includes just such an app on its One series phones, and now it's available in the Play Store.
Remember that neato Sony car stereo we checked out at CES, which is basically the perfect receiver for someone who uses their phone for all their in-car entertainment? Well, the XSP N1BT (catchy!) is here. You can buy it from Crutchfield or pre-order it now on Amazon for $249.99, and it will ship out on Thursday the 29th, just barely making Sony's May commitment for release.
As even a brief survey of the world could tell you, we live in the future. As such, isn't it about time to stop plugging wires into all your devices? Qi-compatible charging is showing up in more phones and tablets to make it easier to get some juice by just setting your phone down. Still, there isn't a good wireless solution for the car, but the Air Dock might be the first. This device is currently on Indiegogo with a few weeks to go, and we've got some prototypes to test. So, is this a crowd funding project you need to back?
Amid all the gadgets and gizmos at CES, Sony has quietly announced a new in-car entertainment system, the XSP-N1BT. It was announced so quietly, in fact, that everyone seemed to miss it until @evleaks pointed it out. It seems like Sony should have made a bigger deal, because it looks neat.
Stop holding your Nexus 7 in your hands like a chump and check this out. These industrious modders have built and installed complete Nexus 7 mounting systems in a Subaru STi and Toyota Celica. The Toyota owner even created a launcher skin to go with the mod. The skin, of course, is based on Knight Rider (seen below).
Docks are hard to come by for Android hardware, where very few individual models rise above the pack. But if you're one of 30,000,000 people sporting a Galaxy S III, or one of the considerably smaller number using AT&T's Samsung Infuse 4G, you can pick up an official vehicle mount for a song. Assuming that you can sing a song that's worth five American dollars.
I love gadgets. Not only that, but I love gadgets for my gadgets: cases, docks, stands, mounts, keyboards, and pretty much anything else you can think of. There's also a dark side at work here, though: I'm also a perfectionist. As such, I'm always on a quest for the perfect thingy-majig, which, in all likelihood, probably doesn't exist.
It’s hard to say if it called for a full-blown press release, but Samsung today issued a statement announcing the availability of official Samsung-branded accessories for Galaxy S devices in the US.
When Google closed up shop at their now ghost-town of a webstore, Nexus One owners were left without an outlet for official accessories, particularly the elusive HTC Nexus One Car Phone Holder (aka car dock).
Google has finally released the last of the accessories for its first foray into the mobile handset market, the Nexus One. Shortly after the Nexus One was announced, we were graced with the desktop dock - a simple, yet functional device that takes advantage of the metal contacts on the bottom of the phone to allow charging and audio playback without the need to mess with pesky wires.
The Nexus One became available for sale on January 5th. The Nexus One Desktop Dock accessory was on sale a little over 3 weeks later, on January 27th. Finally on April 6th, almost exactly 4 months after the release of the phone, Google has announced that the car dock is available for purchase.