iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch, Android reviews

One of the most heart warming reactions to the ultra high tech aluminum, stainless steel, and glass aesthetic of Apple’s devices is the opposing trend in the case industry of traditional materials, forms, and binding techniques. Swathing something so precisely machined as an iPhone, iPad, and MacBook in something so handcrafted as a Pad&Quill Little Black Book, Contega, or Cartella just feels so right, so human.

When the best of old world craft meets the greatest in modern tech, however, how practical are the results? Follow on after the break to find out!

[Pad&Quill Little Black Book, Pad&Quill Contega, Pad&Quill Cartella]

If you’re an iPhone owner tired of iPad users getting all the moleskin hipster fun, you’re in luck. Pad&Quill have brought both to iPhone with the Little Black Book. From the beautiful binding to the snap of the elastic close to the smell and texture of the materials, it’s just perfectly realized.

You’ve got the high quality bookbinding cloth inside and Italian bonded leather outside, framed by durable Baltic Birch. There are some modern concessions — the ports are all cut out for easy access, as is the camera so you don’t have to extricate your iPhone to snap a picture. You can flip it around and set it up in a tiny, typing position, or crack it open slightly to sit it up portrait style. Both features work better for iPad than iPhone, but it’s nice to have them none the less.

One thing that’s important to remember, however, is that the Little Black Book is made in the moleskin model, not the wallet model. There’s no place for ID or credit cards.

If you’re not into the hipster look, however, these types of cases add a lot bulk and the Little Black Book is no exception. While proportionately the iPad version feels less voluminous, the Little Black Books adds sufficient size that it’s impossible to notice. You have to want a case like this.

If old fashioned style is more important that the extra substance — the Little Black Book is gorgeous.

Contega is Pad&Quill’s second bite at the moleskin-style iPad case apple and it’s an improvement in every way. You’ve got the same great materials — lacquered Baltic Birch, finely bonded Italian leather, and high quality book binding holding it all together.

It’s got an extra hinge that allows it to be set up at two different angles so you can get just the perfect movie watching experience, and the speaker cutout is caved to send the sound right where it needs to be.

Again, all the right cutouts for controls and for the camera are in place. There’s even a hidden pocket for any must-have-handy documents you want to keep with you. And to top it all off — it’s got magnets just like Apple’s SmartCover so your iPad turns on when you open it and off when you close it.

Nice.

If the 11-inch MacBook Air is the “iPad Pro” then Pad&Quill’s Cartella is the pro-level case. Yes, you needn’t feel jealous of all those magnificently mole-skinned iPads you see on the streets and in the coffee shops. You can dress up your MacBook Air every bit as much.

Because a MacBook Air is fundamentally different from iPhone and iPad — it’s intermediated by a keyboard and trackpad, the Cartella didn’t seem as usable as the Little Black Book or Contega, but it felt every bit as carry-able.

With iPhone or iPad, you can just flip them open like a book and start using the multitouch screen. With MacBook Air you need to put it down and open the machine up, not just the case.

If you want the look, that won’t bother you one bit. Otherwise it’s an extra step and shows the advantage of the multitouch screen post-PC format when it comes to getting your hipster on.

As usual, I tried all three for a week (with the exception of the Cartella — Georgia tried that one since she has the 11-inch MacBook Air). All three, Little Black Book, Contega, and Cartella are wonderfully crafted, fantastically good looking, fabulously old world cases for Apple’s latest, greatest, most modern devices.

They’re a tradeoff — the bulk is enough that you have to want the look to put up with it. But chances are you’ve already made your mind up about that. If you’re all in on the moleskin, definitely give Pad&Quill a look.

There are a couple of conflicting stories this weekend about wether or not Apple’s upcoming iPhone 5 — which could be set for launch on October 7 — will have 4G LTE wireless networking built in.

BGR claims to have caught a glimpse at a plist file (preferences list) from an iPhone carrier that shows some interesting LTE info:

BGR has obtained evidence of an internal iOS test build from one of Apple’s major carrier partners, and buried in the firmware is a property list (.plist file) for LTE. This doesn’t necessarily mean every Apple device that’s about to be released will feature an embedded 4G LTE modem, but it certainly means Apple isn’t sitting on the sidelines as 4G LTE networks continue to roll out around the world.

The Cell Phone Junkie, however, points out that the chips Apple probably wants to use still won’t be ready until 2012:

Typically, a switch in chips would require a 3-4 month production process on Qualcomm’s part for the initial order. This would mean if the iPhone 5 was using anything other than the MDM6600 for an October release, we would have likely heard about a leak (like the one from the The Street for it launch) for the switch to something different. And unless Apple is pushing the device launch into early 2012, I don’t see a chip switch happening this year.

So how do we reconcile these apparently conflicting reports? Apple almost certainly has LTE iPhones in the labs so they no doubt have iOS builds that can run the radio. It’s possible the plist entry exists for lab testing but not for real world use.

That means we’d still get an HSPA+ “4G” iPhone 5 in 2011, but would still be waiting on an LTE 4G iPhone 6 in 2012.

Unless of course Apple’s managed to work a miracle and decided to make iPhone 5 the first AT&T LTE device…

Google has just announced that they’re buying Motorola Mobility for $12.5 billion in an attempt to supercharge the Android platform. While the move will bring Google into the handset manufacturing business for the first time, potentially setting them up to deliver the same type of unified, integrated experience Apple is famous for, Google maintains they’ll be running Motorola as a separate business. Which raises some important questions:

How will the play out for other Android licensees like HTC and Samsung? (Microsoft making the Zune killed the PlaysForSure alliance.)Will all future Nexus-type devices come from Motorola going forward?Will all future Motorola phones run stock Android going forward? (no more Blur.)Is Motorola’s patent portfolio strong enough to provide cover against Microsoft and Apple lawsuits?

Quotes from Larry Page and Sanjay Jha after the break.

[Google PR, Google Blog, Android Central coverage]

Larry Page, CEO of Google, said, “Motorola Mobility’s total commitment to Android has created a natural fit for our two companies. Together, we will create amazing user experiences that supercharge the entire Android ecosystem for the benefit of consumers, partners and developers. I look forward to welcoming Motorolans to our family of Googlers.”

Sanjay Jha, CEO of Motorola Mobility, said, “This transaction offers significant value for Motorola Mobility’s stockholders and provides compelling new opportunities for our employees, customers, and partners around the world. We have shared a productive partnership with Google to advance the Android platform, and now through this combination we will be able to do even more to innovate and deliver outstanding mobility solutions across our mobile devices and home businesses.”

Andy Rubin, Senior Vice President of Mobile at Google, said, “We expect that this combination will enable us to break new ground for the Android ecosystem. However, our vision for Android is unchanged and Google remains firmly committed to Android as an open platform and a vibrant open source community. We will continue to work with all of our valued Android partners to develop and distribute innovative Android-powered devices.”

Just to remind us that Google will still be Google — unabashedly hypocritical to the last — Page added the following by way of the Official Google Blog:

We recently explained how companies including Microsoft and Apple are banding together in anti-competitive patent attacks on Android. The U.S. Department of Justice had to intervene in the results of one recent patent auction to “protect competition and innovation in the open source software community” and it is currently looking into the results of the Nortel auction. Our acquisition of Motorola will increase competition by strengthening Google’s patent portfolio, which will enable us to better protect Android from anti-competitive threats from Microsoft, Apple and other companies.

Are “anti-competitive patent attacks” worse than “anti-competitive patent violations”? Google’s a big boy company now, facing regulatory scrutiny and lawsuits over their own practices, including their treatment of rival SkyHook, so how about we can the rhetoric and just make us some great new Googlerola phones, would you please?

UDPATE: Google’s ODM partners have responded to the news… in a way that makes us suspect Google snuck into their houses late last night and replaced them all with Android-powered Replicants. [Android Central]

Peter Chou, CEO, HTC:

“We welcome the news of today‘s acquisition, which demonstrates that Google is deeply committed to defending Android, its partners, and the entire ecosystem.”

Bert Nordberg, President & CEO, Sony Ericsson:

“I welcome Google‘s commitment to defending Android and its partners.”

Jong-Seok Park, Ph.D, President & CEO, LG Electronics Mobile Communications Company:

“We welcome Google‘s commitment to defending Android and its partners.”

J.K. Shin, President, Samsung, Mobile Communications Division:

“We welcome today’s news, which demonstrates Google’s deep commitment to defending Android, its partners, and the ecosystem.”

Yeah, like Georgia said, “we welcome our new Motogoog overlords…”

Holy heck! Waking up to the news of Google buying Motorola Mobility just shows you how fast our industry is moving and changing. But what does it mean for Apple, iPhone and iPad? Will Google really continue to run Motorola “as is” without much change, and Droids and Xooms will just come out again as they came out before? Or will Google start to copy the Apple model more and give Motorola exclusive Nexus handsets with much better, and even more competitive integration? Or will HTC, Samsung, and other Android OEMs feel screwed by this whole deal and start looking more seriously at Windows Phone or maybe even webOS, resulting in less choice for consumers on the Android side?

What do you think, TiPb Nation? Will Motorola for one welcome their new overlords and remain status quo, or is this the beginning of a new galactic order when it comes to iPhone and iPad competition? Vote in the poll above and give me your analysis in the comments below!

Missed a compelling piece of iPad news, a great review, or a killer how-to? We’re not collecting absolutely everything in iPad here — you can hit up TiPb.com/iPad for that! — but we’re carefully picking what we think is the best of the last 7 days and presenting it here for your review.

And hey! — these double as show notes for our iPad Live! podcast tonight at 9pm Eastern. So join us and follow along!

iPad Live, the live recording of the best damn iPad podcast on the planet hits the ‘net again tonight.

If you have any questions or topics you’d like us to discuss, just leave them in the comments then come be part of the show!

(And yes, you can watch from iPhone via Ustream Viewer app (here’s how) and iPad (we recommend Duet Browser.)

Chat with you soon!