Ashley roams the halls of CES 2012 looking for the weirdest, coolest, most fun tech on the show floor. For all of us in the Mobile Nations, the Powerbag is a must-have bag to tote around all your gadgets, since you can charge on the go.

Snowboard Hero: An unrivalled snowboard experience with wicked tricks, insane air time and super fast downhill speed to your iPhone and iPad. Experience console-quality graphics, intuitive controls and top-notch sound in a stunning alpine setting and show the world that you are the undisputed Snowboard Hero.

• $0.99 for iPhone and iPad – App Store link

Calendars – Google Calendar client: Lets you manage events both online and offline. Thanks to the unique interface you can move events simply with Drag & Drop, navigate quickly between dates, change event time, repeat schedule and reminders rapidly with custom keyboards.

• $6.99 for iPhone and iPad – App Store link

iBookcreator: Innovative application to make books with iPhone/iPad! Produce various kinds of books, such as photo books, art books, fairy tales, cook books, PR books or manuals on your own.


• $3.99 for iPhone and iPad – App Store link

Star Marine: Infinite Ammo: The definitive Run n' Gun experience! You play as Arc, a battle hardened drifter who is captured by an alien race in the depths of space. Arc's capturers plan to enslave him and put his strength to work. But, Arc has other plans. He is a trained and elite Star Marine and in a fury of bullets he is going to take them all down!

• $1.99 for iPhone – App Store link

Cash Logistics: Cash Logistics is a currency calculator for estimating the physical dimensions of a given dollar amount if that amount was paid out in legal tender. It reports the number of bills required, the optimal strap division, the total weight, and the estimated space it will require. All you need to supply is a dollar amount and the specific denomination to use. It can also perform the reverse calculation if the only information known is the weight of a currency bundle, or the total number of straps.

• $1.99 for iPhone – App Store link

Any other big app or game releases or updates today?

Have an app you’d love to see featured on iMore? Email us at iosapps@imore.com, tell us about your app (include an iTunes link), and we’ll take a look.

At CES 2012, we encountered the Invisible Keypad, an iPhone case that allows you to “feel” your keyboard. The screen protector part of the case has ridges strategically placed for the iPhone’s portrait keyboard. These ridges are positioned above and outside each key so that you must tap between them versus on them. The creators went with this design to be less obstructive to your screen when the keyboard is not in use.

We only played with a prototype of the case. The final version promises to be slimmer and more polished and is scheduled to release in the first half of the year.

Mole Kart has arrived in the App Store and if you are looking for a game that resembles the original Nintendo Mario Kart, you need look no further. After Nintendo sees how this game looks and plays, we are sure it will be talking with its legal team.

Your favorite Mole characters come together to battle it out in an adrenaline-fueled race to the finish line. They are zooming on to your iPhone and iPad for party racing showdown.Test your skills across different landscapes and unique tracks, ranging from freezing glaciers, cliffhanging mountains, waterfalls and even Mole's World. Experience new challenges, all kinds of monsters, extraordinary gameplay and much more! Challenge up to four friends over WiFi or Bluetooth.

• Choose from 7 unique tracks, set in Mole Pasture,X.Mushroom,Sky Remnant, Mole's Garden and other fantasy environments.
• Go through completing challenges and watch out for outrageous monsters that may await you at any turn!
• 6 iconic Mole characters, each has a custom built vehicle with special abilities to match against tough terrains and all racing conditions.
• Whether racing around an obstacle-filled track or battling in an arena, drifting and tossing items are the keys to Mole Kart success. You can toss a prop to temporarily boost their speed or create an explosion to block competitors. 19 super cool power-ups to outwit your opponents and enhance your racing experience!
• Manual or automatic modes! Experience the ultimate drifting by tilting the device or controlling the virtual stick.
• Local Multiplayer Mode: Battle up to four friends online either on WiFi or Bluetooth.
• Excellent graphic and 3D experience, feel the thrill of racing like never before!

Mole Kart is currently available for $2.99 and is compatible with iPhone 3GS, iPhone 4, iPhone 4S, iPod touch (3rd generation), iPod touch (4th generation) and iPad; it is a universal binary too. You will need to spend a little more if you want to unlock additional tracks and features throughout the game via in-app purchases.

• App Store link

Have an app you'd love to see featured on iMore? Email us at iosapps@imore.com, tell us about your app (include an iTunes link), and we'll take a look.

 

ChangeWave has a new survey out indicating that 54 percent of near-term smartphone buyers are planning on picking up the iPhone 4S over competing devices.

The late December survey looked at smart phone demand trends going forward, and finds Apple iPhone demand remains incredibly strong more than two months after the iPhone 4S release. Among respondents planning to buy a new smart phone in the next 90 days, better than one-in-two (54%; down 11-pts) say they’ll get an iPhone. Apple has never dominated smart phone planned buying to this extent more than two months after a major new release.

The survey, conducted in late December, studied 4,000 North American consumers with the results suggesting huge demand for the iPhone 4S even with it being more than two months old. Based on ChangeWave’s history, this also advocates the iPhone 4S as being Apple’s most popular release, as they’ve never covered the spread of planned smartphone purchasers this far after a major iPhone release.

In addition, Apple continues to lead smartphone satisfaction rates with 76 percent being very satisfied with their iPhone, compared to the nearest competition coming in at around 47 percent with Samsung.

Source: ChangeWave

Apple has apparently sent a few high-level employees to CES to scout out the competition and see how other companies present future products.

Apple (NSDQ: AAPL) famously avoids the biggest event on the tech industry calendar, and given the traffic on Paradise Road this morning you can't exactly blame them. But that doesn't mean Apple isn't scouting the competition in person at CES 2012.

A reporter from PaidContent says he ran into Greg Joswiak, head of iOS product marketing for Apple, who answered a few questions as to why he was there. Apple is interested in learning more about presentation techniques from competitors, including the layout, aesthetics and which products are at the forefront.

Source: Paid Content

Lauren from Case-Mate gave us a look at all their brand new, shiny and stylish iPhone cases at CES 2012. We all know how much Georgia loves her metallic cases and we don’t think she’ll be disappointed with Case-Mate’s new offerings.

If sparkles and glitter aren’t for you, they’ve still got you covered whether your main concern is fashion, protection, or discretion. Besides brand new designs, some old favorites have been updated with new colors and slightly changed form factors as well.

Ford’s Sync system has been leading the way as far as in-car mobile technology is concerned. With the upcoming launch of the Focus Electric, Ford is leaping into the mobile space with a new app that allows owners to manage their vehicle remotely. While it won’t let you drive (sorry James Bond wannabes), the MyFord Mobile app they’re showing off at CES 2012 enables Focus Electric owners to manage how and when their cars charge at home, allowing you to set it so the car charges at night off peak hours with lower electric rates or override it to get your car charged up for an impending trip. MyFord Mobile users will also be able to find charging stations out and about and even plan trips around those charging stations (useful, given the 100 mile range of the all-electric vehicle).

The app, which will be available for iOS, Android, and BlackBerry smartphones is launching with the Focus Electric, which itself is ramping up production right now.

SuperSwitcher is a new jailbreak mod in Cydia that offers extended functionality and settings access to the Fast App Switcher on your iPhone.

Don’t you just hate searching for your favorite app icon in between so many Springboard pages? Wish you could just “bookmark” your favorite apps in the multitasking bar? Now you can with SuperSwitcher!

With SuperSwitcher you can bookmark your 9 favorite apps in the menu above the multitasking bar, and the apps can be set through Settings. But that’s not all! You can also change the system settings right from the menu above the multitasking bar!

• Toggle Bluetooth
• Toggle WiFi
• Change volume and brightness settings
• Respring
• Reboot
• Safe Mode
• Tweet, SMS, Mail or Call anyone on the fly

SuperSwitcher takes your multitasking bar to the next level!

This is a really great mod that adds a lot of value to the Fast App Switcher. You can customize your favorite apps for instant access, control brightness and other settings on-the-fly and then some.

If you run into any trouble you can always jump into our Jailbreak and Unlock forums or post it in the comments!

• $.99 — Cydia Store Link

HzO is a waterproofing technology for smartphones like the iPhone that won’t be available to us (the consumers) but will be available to device manufacturers like Apple for use in the production process. (Whether Apple decides to make use of it — or something similar — is another story.) The thin coating, which they have named WaterBlock, once applied prevents water from coming in contact with the electronics inside the device, thus making it water resistant and giving you the ability to dunk it and not have worry.

If you’re wondering whether it works or not, it surely seems to. Walking around CES 2012, I saw the HzO display with some devices sitting… underneath falling water, still fully functional, like it was nothing. People were using the phones, playing music, just like normal. Even with SIM card and battery exposed, an Android phone remained fully functional. There appeared to be zero damage to any of the electronics.

Again, there’s no way to know if Apple will ever use something like this for the iPhone, but we sure hope they do.

Octa WhaleTail and Vacuum Dock is a tablet holder that suctions to the back and contours the hand very nicely. To get the back to stick on the iPad all you have to do is put it on there, give it a few pumps and it’s on there, and rather firmly. Releasing the holder is pretty simple (once you get the hang of it) — pull up slightly on the two tabs and then push them in, and off it comes. Also included is the WhaleTail which hooks onto the back of the Vacuum Dock which allows the tablet to be propped up and it also doubles as a security measure for when you are carrying your tablet around so it doesn’t just fall right out of your hands.

Check out our live hands on from CES 2012.

For today only, the iMore Store has the Seidio CONVERT Combo for iPhone 4S, iPhone 4 on sale for only $31.95!. Get them before they’re gone!

Get the Seidio CONVERT Combo for iPhone 4S, iPhone 4 now!

According to a report in The Wall Street Journal, Sony is bringing its Music Unlimited service to the iPhone, iPad and iPod touch later this year. Music Unlimited is Sony's subscription based streaming music service and will be available as an app for all iOS devices.

Sony's decision to offer the service, touted as the Japanese company's answer to Apple's iTunes, on iOS devices speaks to Apple's presence in the all-important smartphone and tablet markets as well as Sony's willingness to do whatever it takes to expand the reach of its content services.The Music Unlimited service, along with Sony's video and videogame offerings, functions as the glue holding together the links between the Japanese conglomerate's entertainment businesses and electronics products.

Sony's Music Unlimited service already has over one million active subscribers although that figure also includes users on free trials. Subscribers pay $3.99 to be able to stream music from their own library or $9.99 to access 15 million songs in Sony's library. The iPhone and iPad apps are expected to be available in the first quarter of this year; so basically before the end of March.

Source: WSJ

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Mobile Nations editors Kevin Michaluk, Phil Nickinson, Rene Ritchie, Daniel Rubino, Derek Kessler, Simon Sage and Jared DiPane join Mickey and Joey of The Cell Phone Junkie to wrap-up the biggest events of the 2012 CES. Listen in!

Hosts

Phil Nickinson (@philnickinson) of Android Central

Kevin Michaluk (@crackberrykevin) of CrackBerry.com

Derek Kessler (@dkdsg of webOS Nation

Daniel Rubino (@malatesta77 of WPCentral

Rene Ritchie (@reneritchie) of iMore.com

Simon Sage (@simonsage) of mobilenations.com

Jared DiPane (@jdipane) of mobilenations.com

Mickey Papillon (@TCPJMickey of The Cell Phone Junkie

Joey Koppes (@TCPJJoeyof The Cell Phone Junkie

Feedback

Got something to say? Agree or disagree with something we said? Have something you want us to discuss on a future show? Don’t just sit there yelling at the screen, dammit, let us know!

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Credits

Our music is pROgraM vs. Us3R by by morgantj. Introduction by Joseph Holder.

Thanks to the Mobile Nations network of store for sponsoring this podcast.

The ZAGGkeys FLEX is a great Bluetooth keyboard that includes a case that ultimately doubles up as a stand for your iPhone or iPad. Generally portable keyboards are either awkwardly shaped or just to small but ZAGG has done a great job with the ZAGGkeys Flex, bringing a unit that is 90 percent of the size of a standard keyboard so it remains very easy and comfortable to type on without that annoying learning curve.

One extremely notable feature about the keyboard, besides the size, is the fact that the battery on it only needs to be charged about once every four months. The Flex will automatically go into a standby mode after a few minutes of inactivity. To wake it up again, all you have to do is hit a key, wait a second and then start typing again. If you are looking for a portable Bluetooth keyboard that you can use for your iPhone, iPad, iPod touch, or most any other device, you will definitely want to check out the ZAGGkeys FLEX Bluetooth keyboard.

New to iPhone and wondering how to change your signature to something a little more custom and personal than “Sent from my iPhone?” Luckily, it’s easy to do and it can save you a lot of time when you are writing your emails. It also will reduce the chances of making contact detail errors. Here’s how.

1. Tap on the settings application on your home screen. 2. Tap on Mail, Contacts, Calendars. 3. Scroll down to Signature. 4. Enter whatever details you would like.

Note: This signature will be on all your outgoing mail so make sure it’s appropriate for all your contents!

Tips of the day will range from beginner-level 101 to advanced-level ninjary. If you already know this tip, keep the link handy as a quick way to help a friend. If you have a tip of your own you'd like to suggest, add them to the comments or send them in to dailytips@tipb.com.

Fitbit can help you keep on target with any physical goals by tracking such things as walking, yoga, or weight lifting as well as logging foods you eat, when you eat and more.

Talking with Fitbit at CES 2012, we got a better overall feeling about how they work with iOS. Check out the video above for the full details — it really is quite an amazing product, especially if you’ve got some new year’s resolutions to keep

I’m still at CES 2012 with the rest of the Mobile Nations team, so there won’t be an iPhone or iPad Live tonight. However, to follow up on our CES Kickoff podcast from Monday night, we’ll be doing another special edition later this very evening.

We’ll also be making some big announcements about our iMore podcasts really soon, so stay tuned!