In The News: Appletell - CES 2011: iPad Accessories

CES 2011: iPad accessories

After walking the CES 2011 show floor for one day, one thing is clear, iPad accessories are everywhere. From cases to stands, batteries, keyboards and more, you can find a ton of stuff for the iPad. But there’s a problem…nearly all of it’s crap. Thankfully, there are a few notable accessories I’d really like to share with you. So, let’s do just that.

Ion Audio

Ion Audio

, without a doubt, has the highest number of notable iPad accessories on the show floor. If you’re a DJ, you’ll be interested to see their accessory for the DJay app for iPad. It’s a controller for the DJay app on iPad to make the virtual interface physical. You can do most everything on screen on the controller. I really like the DJay app, but this makes scratching even better.

Ion Audio also has a number of iPad musical keyboards. The first is called the Piano 2 Go. It’s a 25 note (two octave) keyboard. It works with their own piano app named the same. The second is slightly larger. The Piano Master is a 49 note keyboard. It, too, has its own app that will be free on the App Store before these products make it to market.

But the product I really want to talk about is really special. If you like ThinkGeek half as much as I do, then you know that every year they announce ridiculous products on April Fools day. Many of these products eventually get made because they are just too good of ideas to pass up. This is one of those products. It’s the iCADE.

It’s a Bluetooth controller shaped like a desktop arcade machine. Right now it only plays Asteroids, but they are working with developers to increase support for it. If you ever put a quarter into an arcade machine, you’re heart is probably lusting after this guy as you read. It should be available Summer 2011 for about $100. I, for one, cannot wait.