Haptic feedback has been around for a very long time, jiggling your handset ever so slightly when you tap on the virtual keyboard or hit a virtual button. For better or for worse, the iPhone lacks this feature. Well, that’s effectively changing today with the announcement of the Pulse.

Mophie and ViviTouch have partnered up to produce this iAccessory and it’s mostly catering to the folks who use their iPhones to play games. It’s like an iPhone case, except the goal is to give you haptic feedback, letting you “feel the difference between hundreds of sensations, not just the one-buzz-fits-all vibration before.”

This is nothing like having physical gaming controls, but if you’re looking for a little vibe to go with your Angry Birds, I guess this is it. The Mophie branded device, which doesn’t appear to have any battery-boosting functionality like its other Mophie cousins, also rocks a couple of stereo speakers. No word on price, but the Pulse is “coming soon” to an iRetailer near you.

The Pulse is basically a slimmer version of the Mophie juice pack, meaning it includes the added battery life and the solid protective case. But in addition to those features the Pulse also has the ability to significantly increase the volume and vibration of your device. It does this with built-in front-facing speakers that can work to increase your ring tone to make it easier to hear while it’s in your pocket, or as a portable speaker system to play your music, and powerful feedback technology designed by a company called Reflex.

Whether you want to increase your battery life, actually know when you are receiving a call or a text or simply just want a pretty and sturdy case for your iPhone, the new Mophie Pulse can give you all of those features. A bit of a twist from what we’re used to, but I guess Mophie has to do something new.

[Gizmodo via Mophie]

Mophie Juice Pack Air for iPod Touch

We’ve seen plenty of products that are designed to extend the battery life of the Apple iPhone, including the incredibly popular Mophie Juice Pack Air. What about all the iPod touch owners in the audience? Well, Mophie’s going to take care of them too.

Today, Mophie announced the launch of the Juice Pack Air for the iPod touch. Like the iPhone version, the iPod touch version of the Juice Pack Air is a combined battery extender and protective case in one. The form fitting case is available in metallic red, blue, and gunmetal black and built-in battery can provide you with up to 30 additional hours of audio or 7 additional hours of video. There’s also a pass-through USB, so you can sync the iPod touch while still inside the Juice Pack Air case.

The new Juice Pack Air, which is now in its sixth generation, also features “intelligent power distribution.” This tells the iPod touch to draw power from the Juice Pack Air first before going to the iPod touch’s own internal battery.  Available now through Apple.com and Mophie.com, the Juice Pack Air for iPod touch sells for $79.95.

Instead of getting customers to walk up to a traditional cash register, they can simply walk up to one of the customer service reps on the floor armed with this device. It’s not entirely new, per se, but the case does come with the ability to swipe credit cards.

Working in tandem with an appropriate app for the iPhone, the yet unnamed Mophie case can then swipe a traditional credit card just like you would with the machine from the bank. I can’t say for sure whether it works for debit too, but I don’t see why they can’t develop an app that does that too.

We’re expecting to see more information about this Mophie credit card iPhone case at CES next month. How this will line up against the Square mobile payment system remains to be seen.

Source: Intomobile

At the time of the contest, the Mophie Juice Pack Air was only avaialble in your choice of black, white, or purple. The first two color options make sense, since those are the two colors that you can find the iPhone 3G and 3GS. Now we get to add some festive cheer to the mix.

Mophie has announced that the Juice Pack Air is now available in red. There’s no mention of a green variant just yet, but this is pretty suitable for Christmas. If you hang on for a couple more months, it’ll be perfect for Valentine’s Day too.

The functionality of the red Juice Pack Air is exactly the same as the other models, so you still get “the world’s thinnest rechargeable battery case for iPhone 3G and 3GS.” Find it on the Mophie site or at your favorite retailers for $79.95.

Source: Mophie

One of the newest products to hit the block is the Mophie Car & Wall International USB Charger. Why invest in a separate wall charger and car charger when you can have both in one convenient package? This particular product is designed to work with the International Adapter Travel Kit so that it can work no matter where in the world you may find yourself.

Two Chargers for the Price of One

I certainly enjoyed the Mophie Dual USB Wall Charger that I looked at last week, but it was only useful for when you found yourself next to a wall outlet. As you may recall, the idea is that it would transform a standard wall outlet into a pair of powered USB ports. These ports could then be used to charge your iPod, iPhone, or any number of other USB devices.

The Wall & Car International USB Charger only offers a single USB port, but it comes with dual functionality. If you look around to the back, you’ll notice that it has the power prongs that flip out for connecting to a wall outlet. Along the side, however, it has the 12V adapter for charging in the car.

The overall build quality is good and the swinging arm for the 12V adapter can rotate 270 degrees. This way, it should be able to fit in just about any car dash configuration. On the downside, this charger is much bulkier than what you would find with a standalone wall adapter or a standalone car charger.

Traveling All Around the World

The regular flip-out power prongs on the Wall & Car International USB Charger are fine for when you’re hanging out in New York or Vancouver, but what about when you take that trip to Paris or Hong Kong? Those prongs just won’t do.

That’s where the accompanying Mophie International Adapter Travel Kit comes into play. You get a basic carrying bag along with three adapters to work with a number of international locations. It’s not completely comprehensive, but you should be covered for most global destinations.

They look like the regular travel adapters that you can buy from any number of electronics accessory stores, but these adapters have a little something extra. There is a small tab that fits into a slot on the Wall & Car Charger, clicking in place so that it doesn’t accidentally fall out. The Wall & Car Charger then has a release tab so that you can take off the adapter as needed.

A Handy Accessory for Power-Hungry Fanatics

Most people will say that they are perfectly happy charging their iPods and iPhones through their computers, but that USB port won’t always be available to you. Sometimes, it’s just more convenient to have a regular wall or car charger and this Mophie package combines the two into one simple solution.

The Mophie Wall & Car International USB Charger ($24.95) is certainly handy and it is designed quite well, but I find that it is a little too bulky for my tastes. It’s almost as big as those power inverters that you can get for your car, converting a 12V outlet into a wall outlet. The International Adapter Travel Kit ($14.95) seems like a nice addition as well, but you can probably find cheaper generic adapters elsewhere.

I applaud Mophie on combining a car charger with a wall adapter, but I think future iterations could be much more compact. Having a second powered USB port would be helpful too.

Overall Rating: 7.0/10

If you’re looking for something particularly groundbreaking in this arena, you probably won’t be terribly impressed with what this product has to offer. At the same time, the Mophie Dual USB Wall Charger can become an indispensable accessory for gadget geeks on the go. Just find a wall outlet and you can charge any two USB devices at once.

To keep things as simple as possible, Mophie includes absolutely nothing with the Dual USB Wall Charger. You won’t find any extra iPod cables or instructional booklets, so you’ll need to supply your USB cables on your own. This may be a point of frustration for some users, but it helps to keep the costs as low as possible.

The Mophie Dual USB Wall Charger is designed to be remarkably slim. This makes it easy to slot into just about any backpack, briefcase, or jacket pocket. Frequent travelers will appreciate that much.

Since the two USB ports are placed side-by-side, as shown above, this does create a problem for people who are using surge protectors and other power strips. The Mophie product is wider than a single power outlet, so you will be blocking ports when you are using this product. That’s the price you pay for slim, I suppose.

To keep up with the slim profile and slender design, you’ll notice that the power prongs on the Dual USB Wall Charger are designed to flip into the body when not in use. The rectangular block is easy to stow in your bag, since the prongs don’t get in the way.

From what I understand, the Mophie Dual USB Wall Charger outputs a total of 1.0 amps of power, so bear that in mind when you are thinking about the devices that need charging. Some products require a full amp, whereas others only need half an amp. If you’re charging the former, the second USB port may not be available to you.

For the sake of comparison, here is the Mophie Dual USB Wall Charger next to the Griffin PowerBlock Dual AC Charger. These two products offer basically the same functionality, converting a regular wall outlet into a couple of powered USB ports.

The difference is that the Griffin product is definitely “chunkier” than its Mophie counterpart, but the Griffin product will not block neighboring power outlets on a power bar. It’s up to you whether you value the slimness of the Mophie charger over the “non-blocking” design of the Griffin charger.

The Mophie Dual Port USB Wall Charger is listed at just $19.95, so that’s a pretty small investment for the added convenience that you can have both at home and on the road. It doesn’t floor anybody with groundbreaking innovation, but it’s one of the more useful little gadgets that you can carry in your bag.

Overall Rating: 7.5/10

Well, that contest has now drawn to a close and it’s time to announce the winner. As you may recall, the Juice Pack Air is a rechargeable external battery for the iPhone 3G and 3GS that pulls double-duty as a protective case too. It’s a pretty handy addition and it sells for $79.95.

Using the random number generator at random.org, it was determined that the winner of this contest is Chris Tsang! Congratulations, Chris!

Stay tuned for our next giveaway.

The Mophie Juice Pack Air is compatible with both the iPhone 3G and the iPhone 3GS, and it serves a dual purpose for all the iPhone-wielding folks out there. First, it’s a great hard-shell protective case without adding much in terms of weight or profile size. More importantly, it’s an extra battery pack for the iPhone, extending its life by up to 100%.

The contest is to help kick off the launch of the Mobile Magazine forum, so all you have to do to enter is to reply to the contest forum thread with your favorite all-time gadget. That’s all it takes. Go to the forum now and post your reply.

The giveaway is open to anyone in Canada and the United States. A winner will be announced some time on Wednesday, October 28. Good luck!

Do you find that you’re constantly looking for more power for your iPhone 3G or 3GS? Do you want to have some portable power to take with you on the go? How does a Mophie Juice Pack Air sound? This portable battery pack retails for $79.95, but you can have it for free!

From the official product page:

The juice pack air™ is a rechargeable external battery concealed inside of a protective form-fitting case for the iPhone 3G & iPhone 3GS. It offers you the full protection of a hard-shell case while providing virtually twice the battery life of the iPhone alone; all in an ultra-thin, light-weight, low-profile design.

The juice pack air™ is available exclusively through mophie.com and Apple stores world-wide. This is the first Apple certified “Works With iPhone 3G(S)” attached battery in the world!

So, how can you win? It’s simple. Reply to the official contest forum thread, telling us what is your favorite gadget of all-time and why. A winner will be selected at random on Wednesday, October 28, 2009. This contest is open only to residents of Canada and the United States.

CLICK HERE TO ENTER NOW