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At the time of recording, 2020 is approaching fast and if you’re still on the lookout for an original gift this Holiday Season, you’ll love this episode.
I’ve compiled for you a list of 10 gift ideas ranging in price between $8 and $1400 and we’ll go through them from the least expensive to the most expensive one.
1: Elago Intelli Case for Apple TV remote
This is a neat case for the 4th gen Apple TV remote, the black one with the touch sensitive surface at the top.
It’s rubbery and shaped in such a way that it provides a much better grip than holding the remote alone.
And it has 2 magnets so it can stick to metallic surfaces and comes with a lanyard, so that it doesn’t fly off when you play tennis games for example
Price starts at $8 for the basic black model and goes up to $12 for other colours and the one I recommend, the NightGlow Blue.
During the day, it captures the ambient light and at night, well, it glows enough to easily find the remote in a dark environment.
And thanks to the magnet, I can stick it to my old DVD player
Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/elago-Technology-Anti-Slip-Absorption-Generation/dp/B06X9MYQP7?th=1
2: Satechi aluminium type-c clamp hub pro
If you have an iMac, like me, you might be frustrated by the fact that all the USB ports and the SD card reader are at the back of the machine.
The good news is that Satechi has a solution in the form of a hub that clamps to the bottom right of the iMac, uses one of the USB port at the back to provide a bunch of ports at the front.
On my 2014 iMac, I’m using one that connects over USB 3 and offers 4 USB 3 ports at the front.
Since the new iMacs now feature USB-C ports, Satechi is now offering a hub that uses one of those USB-C ports and provides, 3 USB 3 ports, 1 USB-C port (but only for data transfer, not charging), an SD card reader and a micro-SD car reader as well.
And this new model only costs around $50 on Amazon. What a bargain!
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B078859974
3: Twelve South AirFly Pro:
If you have AirPods like me and would like to be able to use them with devices that do not support bluetooth and only have a headphone jack, like the entertainment system in airplane or older car radio players or even some treadmills at the gym.
In that case, you’ll love the AirFly Pro. It’s a bluetooth dongle that you plug in the headphone jack of any device and to which you can connect, up to 2 pairs of bluetooth headphones.
And those do not need to be AirPods by the way. It works with any pair of bluetooth headphone, meaning two people can simultaneously listen to the same music or infotainement system.
And what’s even cooler is that it goes the other way too. You can plug it into the AUX IN port of a non-bluetooth speaker system and then play music or get Waze directions from your phone to the car or the boat sound system.
The dongle has a battery life of about 16 hours and charges over USB-C.
The AirFly Pro costs $55 and, at the time of recording, was only available for purchase through Twelve South’s own website: https://www.twelvesouth.com/products/airfly?variant=30720749109305
4: Backblaze:
If you’ve been listening to Macpreneur for a while, you must have picked up the fact that I’m quite bullish about properly backing our devices, especially those used for business purposes.
When it comes to Macs, Time Machine is great but is not the most robust method when we’re talking about laptops.
The main problem is that the Time Machine hard drive might only be plugged in occasionally and even though macOS will create local snapshots, you should not rely on that, especially for internal hard drives with limited capacity.
This is where Backblaze comes in: A reliable and extremely affordable cloud backup solution for macOS.
For $60 per year or $110 for two years, you get unlimited backup capacity for one computer and all the external storage that is physically connected.
Yep, there ’s no cap.
Backup occurs continuously and there’s even an option to configure your very own encryption key, meaning that no one, even Backblaze itself, cannot access the files you backup there.
And there’s even a mobile app that allows you to access the backed up data from anywhere provided you have an Internet connection.
Backlblaze has a special page where anyone can gift one year of cloud backup here: https://secure.backblaze.com/gift.htm
5: Twelve South HiRise Wireless:
Last year, I recommended the HiRise duo, a stand that allows to charge simultaneously an iPhone and an Apple Watch.
Since all the iPhones currently sold by Apple offer wireless charging Twelve South has released the HiRise Wireless.
It’s Qi charger and an iPhone stand in one, and the wireless charging bit can detach to be used flat when travelling or to charge other devices, like the AirPods or the AirPods Pro charging case.
Sold for $80 on Twelve South’s website, you can find it for $60 on Amazon.com.
6: SwitchPod
If you’re a Vlogger, you might already have heard about the SwitchPod.
In case you haven’t, it’s an innovative tripod solution developed by Pat Flynn and videographer Caleb Wojcik.
Being Vloggers themselves, they were frustrated with the solution that they were using at the time, mainly the GorillaPod that you might be using yourself.
On the plus side, the GorrilaPod is flexible and thus you can use it both as a tripod and to hold the camera while filming.
The main issue is that it’s heavy and you always have to bend it, unbend it and if you don’t pay attention, the camera could fall while in tripod mode.
They looked for a better solution but couldn’t find one, so they invented the SwitchPod.
It’s a very stable tripod whose legs have magnets and can rotate so that when joined up, they have the perfect shape for holding it while filming.
The trick is that thanks to a spring, you can quickly switch to tripod mode with just one hand.
They’ve gone through a dozen of prototypes and successfully launched the final product on Kickstarter in March 2019, reaching their funding goal of $100.000 in less than 12 hours.
If you’re interested, here’s the link to the blog post explaining the entire history of this invention.
Now, you can buy it from the Switchpod Web site for $99 at https://switchpod.co/products/switchpod
7: Withings Body+ scale:
To be productive, one needs to be in tip top shape and even if exercising is important, the things we eat are as important and sometimes even more so.
Now, you most probably already have a scale at home but does your scale give you insights on your weight trends?
Can it give you finer details like the muscle mass, the fat mass and how much water your body holds?
And does it allow you to store all that information electronically and in the cloud?
This is where the Withings Body+ scale comes in.
It can do all that and can be used by up to 8 people.
I’ve been using a Withings scale for almost a decade now and I love it.
It runs over 4 double AA batteries and connects over Wi-Fi to send the information to your own Withings account.
Then , using the Health Mate app on your iPhone, you can see the complete history, for you but also other members of your family if you define them too.
And it integrates with Apple Health, Fitbit, MyFitnessPal and Google Fit.
The Body+ scale cost $99 and you can find it on Amazon.com or directly from the Withings’ website.
8: Twelve South HiRise Pro
If you have an iMac, you might have put some reams of paper under it to bring it to the right height.
And if you’ve got a bunch of hard drives connected to it, at least one of them for Time Machine, your desk might look a bit cluttered.
Well, Twelve South, once again, has an elegant solution to these problems.
It’s called the HiRise Pro and acts as a stand for the iMac allowing you to raise its height about 3 inches or 7 centimeters.
In addition to that, it’s an enclosure where you can store and hide hard drives with a front panel that attaches magnetically so it’s easy to open and close it.
I have the first edition which is in silver and now Twelve South offers the pro edition which is in space grey.
At the back, there’s a large notch for cables and you can even fit a Mac Mini inside and instead of the iMac stand, put an external monitor.
The HiRise Pro costs between $150 and $170 depending whether you buy it from amazon.com or directly from Twelve South.
9: Apple AirPods Pro
If you’ve been listening to the show for a while now, there’s no surprise that I picked the AirPods last year as a Holiday Gift, and now the AirPods Pro as holiday gift.
For people who have an iPhone and either make a lot of calls or listen to podcasts or music, the AirPods Pro are really great.
The improvement over the previous generation, the AirPods, is that now is has noice cancellation features, and it fits better in the ear.
You don’t double tap on it anymore, there’s a touch sensitive surface on the stem, so you press on it to play, pause, skip track and you can switch between difference modes.
One of those modes is the transparency mode that allows you to hear ambient noises while listening to music, which is great if you’re cycling or walking and want to pay attention to the traffic.
At the time of recording, so in December 2019, there is not a lot of stock left
They were very popular since they were realeased.
They cost $249 in the US and £249 in the UK and in Europe, they’re around 279€ from Apple’s website.
10: Apple Watch Series 5
In September 2019, Apple released the Series 5 Apple Watch.
It’s roughly the same size and weight as the previous generation, the Series 4 while adding new features like an always-on display, International Emergency Calling, doubled the internal storage to 32 GB and a compass.
On top of the Nike+ and the Hermes versions, Apple brought back the Apple Watch Edition with a white ceramic model.
The Aluminum Series 5 Wi-Fi only in 40mm starts at $399 in the US and £399 in the UK and in Europe it’s roughly 450€.
Add 30 to the price (regardless of the currency) to get the 44mm version and add 100 to the price to get the cellular option.
The price goes up to $1399 and 1499€ for the most expensive Hermes or White ceramic edition
The good news is that Apple continues to sell the Series 3 but at a much lower price so it’s a great option for teenagers for instance.
Talking about the Series 3, it start at $199 and £199 and in Europe it’s about 229€
Even though it’s compatible with watchOS 6, you’ll miss a few features like watch faces with more complications and ambient noise monitoring.
Available from Apple at: https://www.apple.com/shop/buy-watch/apple-watch