iPad Must-Have Accessories
For the last 14 days I have been a proud iPad-owner – and boy what an experience it has been!
Like almost any other iPad owner, I experienced love at first sight, as my own iPad was the first one I ever laid my hands on.
I will spare you for a review, since the the interweb is littered with reviews already – this time I was not an early mover. It was quite a struggle to get a hold of an iPad here in Denmark, unless you are willing to pay 2-3 times the official Apple price.
Even before I received my iPad I started shopping for accessories on eBay and DealExtreme, and I’m going to recommend some of them to you.
A protective sleeve
I wanted to be able to protect my precious from day one, and that’s why my first eBay item was a leather sleeve at only $7.17 including shipping to europe.
Despite the rather low price, the sleeve feels quite exclusive. The interior is imitated suede and gives you a reassuring protective feeling when shoving the iPad into the sleeve. The exterior is actually not leather, even though this was advertised. The exterior is a sturdy nylon material, that gives the sleeve a nice and stable feeling. The velcro-powered closing “mechanism” is in (imitated) leather though.
Im quite satisfied with this sleeve for transpiration use, but I ordered a Apple-ish flip-style case as well, which I’m yet to receive.
A great alternative to the leather case is the $8.40 manilla-style sleeve from DealExtreme
A sync/charge dock
As you may know, Apple is not selling the iPad in Denmark yet. This means, that their official dock is not available in Denmark as well. This “forced” be to go eBay shopping again. Don’t get me wrong – I LOVE eBay shopping!
I was able to find a quite nice looking iPad dock at only $6.31 including shipping to Europe. It’s available in both black and white. I picked the white one as it matches my iMac the best. The dock has the same rubber base as Apple’s own docks and therefore quite “skid-proof”. Besides the normal dock connector in the back it sports a line-out port as well. The only problem with this dock is, that the iPod app thinks that the iPad is mounted in a speaker dock and therefore enables the line out, and disables the built in speaker.
iPad Wall-mount kit
After seeing this video I just HAD to order 3 feet of white vecro setting me back $3.50 – Now I can mount my iPad almost anywhere – In the kitchen, over the bed, in the car or even on window glass! The only drawback is that the vecro is ruining the lovely alu back of the iPad.
iPad stylus
After receiving my iPad i quickly got hooked on the Pictionary-styled drawing game Charadium HD. To be able to make more detailed drawings i decided to try an iPad Stylus from ebay. I have ordered a couple of alternatives from Deal Extreme, and I will update the post when I know which one to recommend.
Audio Splitter
This summer I’m taking my fifth trip to USA, and the iPad is going to be the best travel companion for me and my girlfriend. For us to be able to share a movie on the iPad, I decided to order a nice Apple-ish head phone spitter from DealExtreme at only $2.20 with free shipping. DX claims that it’s a genuine Apple audio split adaptor… Uhm.. no so much! But with the $2 price tag I won’t complain.
Last but not least – Micro Fibre Cloths!
Even though Apple added some kind of anti-fingerprint oleophobic coating to the iPad’s screen it WILL get smudged in fingerprints eventually. Don’t use any harsh cleaning products or attempt any excessive polishing as you can and will wear off the oleophobic coating. Just use a plain mirco fibre cloth, and the smudges will disappear like snow in the sun!
How do YOU accessorize your iPad?
Do you think I missed anything? I most likely have, as the iPad accessory market is already quite gigantic! If you have bought a nice gadget or accessory for you iPad, please let me know in the comments.
@TechPatio
says:
Good idea with that “original” audio splitter. I could use one of them, better go order it. I suppose it was originally designed for the first generation iPhone due to its slim minijack connector, like the splitter also seem to have.
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Hi these iPad accessories are really helpful and will make the most out of your iPad. That’s the reason why I love iPad because it has many uses.
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