Objects & subjects

InvisibleSHIELD for iPhone 3G: First reactions

I bought a transparent hard case protector (from Speck) for my iPhone when I first got it. It protects the back and sides of the device, but not the screen. A more protective solution would be i.e. a rubber case that protects the entire device, but then you need to take the device out every time you’re going to use it.

I didn’t like the Speck case. It must be removed when docking the iPhone. And, get this: my earphone jack does not fit the hole, so I cannot use my iPhone as an iPod with the case on! The ear plugs delivered with the iPhone might fit, but I’ve never used them. When on the move, I use a pair of Koss Porta Pro (which are probably one of the most sold ear phones on the market), and at home I use a pair of Sony MDR-F1. Neither fit.

Besides; I don’t like the notion of hiding something as beautiful as the iPhone inside an ugly casing.

When I found that ZAGG makes a screen protector for the iPhone 3G, I decided to try it. And then, at the online store, I find that they also have a “Full Body” protector. A chance to get rid of the Speck case? I ordered the full body protector.

Unpacking the InvisibleSHIELD, I wondered how it would be possible to fit an adhesive screen on corners and such without experiencing a “sticky hell”. ZAGG has had that thought as well, apparently, ’cause the InvisibleSHIELD comes with a small bottle of “SHIELDspray”. You actually spray the adhesive side of the shield with this liquid before putting it on.

So, does it work?

The liquid makes it simple to get rid of air bubbles, using the provided “Install Squeegee” rubber piece. The spray also enables you to get more than one try, because the shield does not stick completely to the iPhone at once. You can even slide it around a little to fit it better. And for me, this “more than one try” was neccessary! I’m not a particularly handy guy. I found it quite hard to fit it perfectly. The width of the shield is so precicely cut that if you miss by half a millimeter, the shield “sticks out” on the front. So I needed several tries to fit it.

The front, on the other hand, was a breeze. Of course, there are no tricky parts on the front. Just a flat screen. So that took me about a tenth of the time spent on the back and sides.
So yes, it does work. And any of you more handy than me will probably experience less problems as well

So, the most important question: Will you forget that it’s there?

This remains to be seen. As for the touch, my iPhone feels different. A little “softer” maybe. But the grip is better, so the risk of dropping it is reduced. It is still blank and sexy, but not as shiny as it was. That is to be expected. And if you decide to get rid of the shield later on, no glue will remain on your iPhone (according to ZAGG).

These were my first impressions. I’m happy that I don’t need an ugly casing anymore. I will write a follow-up in a week or two with my experiences with the InvisibleSHIELD in use.

MacBook Pro: Three-finger swipe in FireFox

I used to hate “trackpads”, “touchpads” or whatever the different manufacturers called them. You know: mouse substitute on laptops. I found them imprecise, but worse: I used to accidentally touch them with the palms on my hands when writing, causing all kinds of annoying things to happen (selecting and overwriting text etc). So I’ve always used either the little pin/stick between the G/H keys (if present) or an external mouse. Until… come MacBook Pro!

The Multi-Touch feature on my new MacBook Pro is fantastic. I took me a couple of days to get used to, but now I’m absolutely addicted to features such as pinching, rotating, zooming etc. And swiping. Using three fingers to swipe left of right I can skip to the previous or next page in Safari or a PDF document, skip to next picture in iPhoto etc.

I use FireFox for browsing and web development. But after switching to Mac, I’ve mostly used Safari. Why? Simply because the swipe function doesn’t work with FireFox. That’s how addticted I’ve become. But today I came across a great little app: MultiClutch. Using this app you can configure swipe and other gestures across different applications. It’s fast, easy and works like a charm!

NOTE: On my new MacBook Pro there are no [ and ] keys. I have to use alt+8 and alt+9 for these symbols, but MultiClutch won’t accept this in conjunction with the cmd key. So I settled for using the left/right arrows instead (together with the cmd key).