Smartphones can do pretty much anything, but most of us still tend to use them in at least one very low-tech way: as flashlights. Getting to the bedroom after you turn out the house lights, finding your keys in your bag, or finding the way to the bathroom in an unfamiliar hotel room all call for the use of the handy-dandy camera flash as a surprisingly powerful light.

The Travelamp, designed by Sebastiano Tosi and Mattia Fossati, uses the same flashlight functionality for small, portable nightlights. These little lights are officially known as “light diffusers” since they aren’t powered in any way; they’re simply shapes attached to little straps that attach around the body of your phone.

The Travelamp comes in two shapes: lamp and lantern. Both are made of soft, durable silicone that won’t scratch up your phone. Just slip the strap around the body of the phone and position the lamp over the flash. Then turn on your phone’s flashlight function and you’ve got a handy little bedside table shining a soft, diffuse light that’s perfect for reading by…or just walking around without battering your poor toes.

The smartphone accessory is expected to be in stock at Fred & Friends in October 2015 and will cost you a cool $8. You won’t need a cable or special battery or anything else to use the Travelamp, but you’d better have a charging cable for your phone on hand since the flashlight function tends to kill batteries in record time.

The post Lighten Up! Silicone Accessory Turns Phones Into Lamps first appeared on Gajitz.

We’ve spent years babying our iPhones and countless dollars on better cases to keep them safe (usually after breaking one and then replacing it). It seems odd, then, that we should be so intrigued by the iPhone Trick Cover from Japanese company Nitto. The cover, only available for iPhone 6 and 6 Plus, makes you look like a slick ninja whenever you take your phone out.

The “trick” in the trick cover is its unique flipping motion. With a flick of your wrist, you can shake that bad boy up like a pair of nunchuks to slide out your phone. Shake it and slide it again and your phone’s screen is protected. Then it’s up to you whether you want to keep playing with it or actually use it to be productive. Judging from how fun it looks, we’d probably never get anything done ever again.

But the case isn’t all flash; it also stores your credit cards, ID, and transport passes like a lot of other wallet-type phone cases. When you’re done playing with it, the case becomes a stand for your phone so you can set it down securely on a flat surface. It’ll probably need to rest after all of that ninja-style tricking, anyway.

You can also just use your hand to slide the phone case open and closed if you, like us, are terrified of your phone flying out of your hands when you’re trying to look cool. You can buy the iPhone Trick Cover for around $30 at Nitto’s online shop.

The post Nunchuk-Inspired Case Gives You Mad iPhone Ninja Skills first appeared on Gajitz.

Portable “top-up” or emergency chargers have been available for mobile phones for ages, but they tend to make using your phone difficult. When it’s tethered to the external battery and you want to use the phone for a call, you also have to lift the attached battery.

Designers Sang Hoon Yoon and Hyeji Eom came up with an elegant, streamlined top-up battery concept that gives you double the charge time and half the hassle. The Wireless Dual Battery starts out as a disc-shaped object. When you want to use it to charge your phone, you simply pull the halves apart and plug the half-circle into your phone.

The slimline charger fits right in with the phone’s body and lets you talk while charging without the awkward cord or clunky portable charger. If you’re feeling generous, you can even charge your phone and give the other half to a friend to top up at the same time.

When the Wireless Dual Battery is charging, the two halves fit together to charge at the same time. The charging pins slide to the sides so the halves can click into place. The design is clearly meant for an iPhone, but if the charger ever makes it into production we hope it would be offered for a wider number of devices.

The post Portable Charger Helps You Disc-over Charging Freedom first appeared on Gajitz.

There’s never been a shortage of weird and seemingly-unnecessary iPhone accessories, and the Rolto printer from King Jim is joining those ranks. The $260 (U.S.) printer more or less takes a screenshot of your iPhone screen, then prints it out (in black and white) onto paper – an iPhone-width piece of paper that looks like a receipt.

The printer connects to your iPhone over a wifi connection and requires a free app to use its interface. The app is in Japanese, but is graphics-based so should be easy enough to use for non-Japanese readers.

Even if the thing you need to print is longer than the iPhone’s screen and requires scrolling on the phone to see it all, the Rolto will print it all. Its paper is on a long roll, like a roll of receipt paper, so you’ll only have one piece of hard copy to deal with.

So the concept sounds a little ridiculous (particularly for the price), but we can actually see it coming in handy in a few situations. Sharing notes or directions, taking a recipe into the kitchen without risking your iPhone’s health, and printing a quick photo all come to mind. Since it’s portable and specifically meant to use with an iPhone, it can be used wherever there’s a wifi connection.

The post Mini Printer Produces iPhone Screenshots in Paper Form first appeared on Gajitz.

Taking pictures with your iPhone really isn’t difficult, but what if you miss the feeling of a real camera in your hands? The Snappgrip is a snap-on accessory that takes your iPhone 5/5s back in time to become a hand-held camera with a real shutter button and a number of other helpful features.

As the name suggests, the accessory snaps on to the iPhone, giving it a handy grip that you can wrap your fingers around. A wrist strap makes sure that you don’t slip and let your expensive attachment and way more expensive phone fall and break. (Come to think of it, we should probably attach our iPhones to wrist straps all the time since we’re getting sick of paying to replace cracked screens. But we digress.) The attachment even features a tripod mount for serious photography.

The grip’s manual controls include flash off/on, zoom in/zoom out, video, and shooting mode. You can switch between landscape and portrait modes, though it isn’t clear if that is a manual control or still requires turning the phone to its side. Snappgrip’s accompanying iOS app will eventually be opened up to developers so they can create custom features. This $70 accessory is fun for those constant iPhone photographers who use their phones as cameras far more than they use them for calls.

The post Snap-On Accessory Makes iPhone-tography Even Easier first appeared on Gajitz.