Smartphone Case and Nalgene Bottle Koozie

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I was on the beach in Puerto Rico today with my Nalgene bottle and my iPhone and thought, "wouldn't it be convient if I had a place to put my iPhone while I was in the water and a koozie (cooler) for my water bottle?" I think yes. This would be really great to play music at the beach. The sleeve would have to be sand proof and there would have to be a layer separating the insulation from the device to prevent the perspiration from penetration.

Self-Winding Watch Technology Inside Your Gadgets

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Self-winding watches are cool. There's a eccentric weight attached to the spring which winds the watch with the reflexive movement of the wearer.


Imagine repurposing of the vibration component inside a mobile phone to use mechanism's eccentric weight to charge the divice by the reflexive movement of the user. I call it EcoReflexive. Walking, running, bouncing, basically any movement would deliver small amounts of charge to the battery.


Phone have ringers but when they're put on silent an eccentric weight is used to vibrate the phone allowing the user to be silently notified. Seeing that this component is only used when the phone is in silent mode and only then when it needs to notify the user, it has a lot of free time which could be repurposed to actively charge the device. This mechanism converts otherwise unused potential energy from movement into useable energy for a device.


The repurposing of this component would be extremely significant to the cellphone industry. A user would never have to worry that their device may run out of battery juice. This could also be a competitor to inductive charging aka changing mats. Place the device on a silent mirco-oscillating charing deck that charges the divice by movement. This would also work if a solar charging case manufacture would implement this as a secondary component.

Update: This has been submitted to OpenInvo.com by its author.

iOS UI Tweak

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This is not a normal idea in the sense of this blog but I wanted to post this here anyway. I'm not sure if something changed with the iPhone's iPod controls in the update from iOS 4.1 to 4.2 but lately I have been accidentally hitting the rewind button |<< which causes me to lose my place. I propose, that when a user is listening to an audiobook or a podcast, the OSD iPod controls be turned into a 30-second rewind button and a play/pause button, instead of the traditional rew, play/pause, fwd buttons. It doesn't have to do this in the iPod app itself but it definitely should make this change on the lock screen and the pop-up iPod control bar. I think it just makes sense.

Inexpensive Solar Panel to Charge Your Smartphone

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Update: We're starting to build a prototype for this product. Stay tuned for more updates.

I've devised a stationary system for using a solar pannel to charge a smartphone that replaces the use of a wall outlet and doesn't cost the consumer an arm and a leg.

A very small solar panel (4.8 volts, 100mA), hung on a window, could load a rechargeable battery over 6-8 hours with enough capacity that, when full, can fully charge a mobile device.

Assumptions:
Smartphones are generally charged at night, trickle charge takes between 6-8 hours.

Here's how it works:
The solar panel is suction cupped to the window which receives maximum sun exposer. The panel is tethered to a desktop component which consists of a rechargeable battery, LED capacity indicators and a female USB port. The desktop component is intended to sit on the nightstand where the smartphone is usually charged and is designed aesthetically so. The battery in the desktop component is charged by the solar panel during the day and stores the load for later use. The power cable for the smartphone is a connected to the desktop component and the smartphone. At night, when the smartphone is connected, the stored energy would be transfered to the battery of the smartphone. This alleviates the use of a wall outlet almost all together.

The desktop component will have to have an auxiliary cable that will always connect to a wall outlet as a backup. This secondary system assists in the event of a poor solar charge due to sunlight obstruction (weather or otherwise) so the smartphone will still be charged. The battery from the desktop component with always be depleted first then a low powered trickle from the wall outlet will provide the addition sustaining charge.

Justification:
It would take a 9 watt solar pannel to high-power charge an iPhone or similar device. This is costly to the consumer and is not required because time period in which these devices are usually charged is during the night. This means using a much smaller panel to trickle charge a rechargeable battery over a longer period of time is much more efficient both cost and energy consumption. At the moment, all solar systems are set up in this traditional way which is reflected in the cost therefor are not practical to the consumer. Using this solar trickle charging method will allow for a huge competitive egde in the market.

Notes:
This system could also be retrofitted to work in a car.
The desktop component could also be designed to be hidden.

Shopping car self check-out scanners.

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Ever been to Sams Club when the lines are really, really long? They have employees scan your products, while you are in line, so as you step to the register all you have to do is pay.

Check this out. Why not throw a scanner on every shopping cart (scanners are cheap in 2011)? As the customer shops, he/she scans every product before it is placed into the shopping cart. Along with price, it would generate the total weight of your order, after each additional product is added.

Done shopping? Go to the checkout and your shopping cart scanner already has the total cost and weight generated. The clerk verifies the weight, by a floor scale (the shopping cart has already been tared out), and charges the customer for scanned total.

This would eliminate lines in stores. It would also eliminate the need for multiple employees, running multiple registers. This is basically just putting the 'self check-out' in each individuals shopping cart.

Simple. Quick. Genius.

The PIG has done it again.

cellPIG.com OINK!

PS...This could also be an app, which is an incentive to bring customers in. Think about it. An iPhone app that lets you skip lines in the store. Just scan the products with your phone.

Programmable iPhone Battostat App

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How bout home thermostats that you can program to drop the heat/cold through out the day/night to save on heating/cooling bills? Pretty much a no brainer for the cost, I would say.

Why not have a 'thermostat' for an iPhone; I call it a Battostat. This would be an app that you can preset to kill certain apps at certain times, wake them up and make them live when you need them, and cut your screen brightness at certain times through out the day. This would all be set for the main purpose of saving your precious iPhone battery. I sure as hell dont need my facebook, twitter, and email updating through out the night. I also dont need my screen burning out my retinas while I'm laying in bed blogging for cellPIG.com. Yup, the pigs an oinkin genius.

cellPIG.com OINK!

Master iPhone Screen Fix - Pre Broken

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I don't know if you can really call this an invention or if its just a common sense suggestion for Apple, but it could definitely be a high demand aftermarket accessory for the iPhone 4 (or any other phone really). I got this idea when my good friend Duck shattered his iPhone screen.

The product is simple.

A tempered glass replacement screen for the iPhone 4. It would look like this (but with cleaner edges):
Get rid of the aluminosilicate glass and put some damn tempered glass in there and you could use your iPhone 4 as a hockey puck.

Production would be stupid easy. Find a company that specialized in tempered glass. Give them the specs. Shoot them out of the machine quicker than pancakes.

And just a hunch, but I think we could do it pretty darn cheap.


cellPIG.com - OINK

Fix Cracked Screens with Resin

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Update: Due to the overwhelming interest in this product I've decided to post a video of the process. Stay tuned, the video will be posted soon!!

Yesterday I dropped my iPhone 4 face down onto concrete.. Guess what happened? Yeah, the screen cracked and now I'm getting glass slivers in my fingers and ears. Now what do I do? Get a replacement from Apple for $199? Or I could try out my latest innovation: Use my secret magical crack resin on the screen of my iPhone.

My theory: The magical crack filler can be used to stop further cracks in the glass of any device and make the glass look better and still be functional. Concerns: If the resin drips below the outer glass between the glass and the LCD and would hinder the operation of the device. Complications: If this doesn't work I may not be able to return the device to Apple for a $199 switcheroo.

This product would open up a whole new market. Look at the broken device market buymytronics, gazelle, squidoo, etc. I bet a large portion of returned devices are simple aesthetic cracks. And given the opportunity, the user would just have just fixed themselves.

Simple iPhone Kickstand

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This kickstand is inserted into the mic jack then the headphones are inserted into that. See drawing.

iPhone Suction Cup for FaceTime

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For faceTime-ing in the kitchen, bathroom, vehicle, ect. Stick one side of the double-sided suction cup to the glass backing of the device and the other to any similar surface. This gadget may or may not have a small arm to twist and turn the device.

Location-based Downloading

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While at the local starbucks this evening I grabbed another one of those free iTunes music cards (today's was from the bands Glasser and Generationals). So I take this little card home and enter the unique ID into iTunes, download the track then sync it to my iPhone. It seems a bit ridiculous not to mention the environmental waste.

Here's an idea to streamline this process. A user simple scans (UPC or RFID) an establishments unique ID and downloads the file directly to the device. This could be used like the starbucks example or to download a resturants menu or the full contact informaions of any establishment (including hours of operation, important calendar dates, coupons and/or useful information). This platform could open up new possibilities for advertising and deeper development. For example, a menu could be downloaded and cross referenced with a user's allergies or specific diet regime.

iPhone SMS Cancel Button

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Sometimes when I'm sending an SMS I wish I could cancel the message. Apple displays the sending status bar but does not offer a way to interrupt it. It probably complicates the backend servers if users start rejecting partially sent messages.

Bandwidth Meter on iPhone Statusbar

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Smart phones should display bandwidth along with service strength. It seems a bit deceiving to trick users into buying a device for Internet and not displaying this.  The phone companies undoubtedly prefer that users do not understand the interaction between signal strength and bandwidth.

Steep and Cheap App Adjustment

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Steep and Cheap's iPhone app should allow the user to pick when type of items which warrants a push notification. For example, I am interested in purchasing a sleeping bag this week ergo the Steep and Cheap App should notify me when a sleeping bag comes up for sale. This would increase a buyer's rate of interest therefor increasing purchasing.

Mac OS X and iOS Integration

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I'm so accustomed to using my iPhone that when I'm typing on my MBP and spell a word wrong I automatically hit delete momentarily expecting the correct word to pop up then I realize I have to do it the ol' fashioned way by using the track pad to highlight the word, right clicking, selecting the correct spelling then continuing with the typage. See where I'm going here?

We're becoming more mobile and web app-centric thanks to devices like the iPhone so I'd like to see some integration of iOS into OS X.

Game Sync

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I play games on both my iPhone and my iPad. Sometimes I play the same game on both devices. I would like to have my game state saved between the games. For instance, I begin playing Fieldrunners on my iPad and then continue on my iPhone when I'm out. Apple could use their Gamecenter to host the game states.

Growl Web Apps Notifications

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Growl the notification system for Mac OS X that allows applications that support Growl to send you notifications should invest some time in developing an API from web apps.

Growl for web apps would send a notification to your mobile device informing you of an update, message, email, ect. I'm not sure how this could be developed possibly to add a badge to a web app on the iPhone home page or a stand along app that notifies the user when any of their web apps are updated.

For example, when using the gmail web app on my iPhone it does not alert me audibly of visually so I must remember to check it thought out the day. That makes the web app practically pointless. The same goes of any of my web apps. This seems to be an important step in transitioning to the web 2.0 structure. If Apple's not going to implement it in iSO then someone else should. *cough* Growl *cough*

Female 30 pin to 3.5mm mic line

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This invention is for all those people who bought a peripheral device to play music with your iPod/iPhone who no long use an iPod/iPhone. Today's your lucky day! Grab that peripheral device out of the garbage or the attic and dust it off. I introduce to you for your listening pleasure, a piece of hardware that will change your life in so many ways, the Female 30 Pin Adapter to 3.5mm Mic Line Jack!



Okay, so the name needs a little work. Here's how it works, plug the female end into the device you use to plug your iPod or iPhone into then plug the other end into any device with a 3.5mm mic line (headphone jack). Voila.

iPhone to iPhone Wired Connect

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I'm surprised no one has made an app or game or anything that requires two iPhones to be connected to each other with the 30 pin adaptor. I'm sure Apple has nixed that idea but why haven't the boys (and girls) of Cydia developed anything of this sort? Anything would be possible, for example: sharing a charge, transferring data, sharing media or even the first-ever iPhone nunchucks.

One drawback is that after preforming a simple google search doesn't seem that this hardware is being sold. Obviously that's because no one has a need for a male 30 pin to male 30 pin yet but that's not to say that a wiring diagram isn't out there.

This seems like one of those situations where supply does not meet demand because there is no demand being made. If a Cydia developer writes any of the subsequent examples any wiring company will jump on the chance to make the hardware. In the meantime early adopters will make their own.

Here are some ideas for developers:

• Share battery life between Apple devises.
• Data Transfer
• Media Sharing (video, audio, books)
• Gaming
• Synced Processes
• Share Video Timecode
• Sync iPhone to iPad (my favorite)

Web Apps, Where's the Beef?

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I have recently converted to using solely web apps on both my MacBook Pro and my iPhone but I have two gripes:

1. The Mac OS does not allow placement of web apps on the dock.

• How hard would it be to add this feature to the OS? I mean Apple already uses this technology in the iPhone. Seems a bit fishy. Is this another attempt by Apple to stifle innovation for control? Maybe when the allure of the iPad wears off they'll add this feature to their other products.

2. Notifications are not integrated on the iPhone OS.

• For example, I no longer use iOS Mail instead I use the Gmail web app but the Gmail web app does not alert me when I have a new email. Without that feature it makes that web app kind of pointless. Example two, same thing goes for google voicemail web app. The only way I know that I receive a VM is when I get an email with the VM in it. Now, I don't need the web app at all.

Now, I don't know a lot about development but these two things seem to be overlooked in the Web 2.0 conversion. I bet a dev could write an app that allows for web apps to be integrated into a Mac's desktop Dock and write a preifirial app that notifies you when one of your web apps is updated on an iPhone. Where is that dev?

..to be continued. Stay tuned. ;)