I owned the first Jawbone bluetooth headset when it came out. I did not care for the fit, the feel, or frankly the noise cancellation. When the noise suppression worked, it was fine. But most of the time the nub lost contact with my cheek and chopped up my voice. The ICON Series no longer requires face contact although it works better with contact. Since the fit issues for me are significantly better than the first generation, it now stays in contact with my cheek all the time. That said, due to operator error, it took me time to find the right fit. At first I fiddled with the three earbud-only pieces. Then the three without the expander loop and using the behind-the-ear loop. None seemed to hold it in place well or feel good. I finally read the (two-step) instructions. Inserting it as pictured seated the standard one fit perfectly. At first it was noticeable, but that quickly evaporated. I do not walk around with the headset in my ear when not in use. I do, however, make long calls. Longest single call this weekend was just over 1 1/2 hours.  The Ace, my custom voice, announced I still had two hours of talk time left. Not great, but adequate for this tiny headset.

My ICON Hero provided great call quality in both directions. I have not used it in a high noise environment, like driving with open windows in the truck, but it did well in an office environment with the usual complement of way too many computer fans humming.

Jawbone’s MyTalk deserves a mention. First, only the ICON Series can take advantage of this. Second, it can run only one app and one custom voice. Right now the apps are very limited. I am running A2DP which allows me to listen to content–music, podcasts, etc.–over the headset not just phone calls. In addition to that, there are three female and three male voices to choose from. I am running Ace. Ace, subtitled Be Foxy, reminds me of my GPS’ female Australian voice (but maybe Ace  is British.) She is professional and sexy sounding. The Bombshell and The Catch, the other two female voices, sounded a little too air headed for me /shrug, to each his own. I am sure the male voices sounded fine. If any of you are using a male voice, please leave a comment and let us know what you think.

Get Underworlds today

The cases are reasonably priced at $39.95 plus shipping. They use their TATT printing on a good quality hard plastic slider case. From their website: “Our exclusive 3D TATT™ (Thermo-Active Transdermal Technology) printing process transfers the ink deep into the case’s surface creating the only one-of-a-kind protective cases on the planet.” From my experience, the image holds up well with routine scratches. I do not have any deep gouges (yet!) Looking at the edges of the printing in the connector area, the print depth appears to range from 0.5 – 1 mm into the plastic. There is a uniform black area on the front analogous to the silver bezel on the phone.

The process is brain dead simple. After uploading your image, you can scale and rotate it while seeing how it will overlay on the case and print area. When you are done, they provide an image of what the case will look like (see left) as well as a wallpaper image for your iPhone. Uncommon kept me informed during the process from submitting my order, through printing, to shipping. It took three days from order to in my pocket. The delivered case looked exactly like the mock-up provided during the process.

I am extremely happy with the end result and have received numerous compliments. Most are doubly amazed that case image is from a photo I shot.

Single Player mode held my interest for about five minutes. We tried two-player. We didn’t finish the game. Maybe my partner and I are both type-A personality gamers who get into games with a fury, but we found ourselves pulling the phone from each other’s hands time after time. Additionally, the “Pause” and “Menu” buttons are in the corners next one player’s goal. Even more so than having the phone ripped from my hands, having the game suddenly pause and staring at each other took us out of the moment.  The second time it happened we both went “meh?” and gave up.

Bottom Line: Air Hockey is not my kind of game. If it is yours, give SteamPunk Hockey a try since it attempts to deliver a new experience.

SteamPunk Hockey (Free)

Credits drive both your level advancement and your ability to buy better armor and weapons. Credits are also used to upgrade them. Each time you kill an opponent, they drop credits and health power up that can be picked up by anyone. Taunting (shaking your iPhone or Touch) over a dead body adds to the credit score at the end.

Energy drives your ability to stay in the game. Each round takes a third of your energy bar. Four power cells replenish a third of your bar. You can wait to recharge naturally on a two hour cycle, or you can spend 4-12 power cells to replenish your energy bar. While energy is zero, you can play but not earn credits. You an also increase your ranking, not level, which is used by the matchmaking system to usually get a roughly equal four-way death match. I tried to lower my ranking by getting killed as much as possible and not killing anyone. No luck. Rank only advanced or stayed equal on zero energy. There may be other ways to manipulate the ranking system, but this is one they covered. A quick check of GamePro does not list any cheats. I find that gratifying. Nothing tanks a FPS than easy cheats that destroy fair-play.

This app plays best over WiFi, and I have had good-luck over 3G. YMMV on 3G. Some report not fairing as well as WiFi. I claim they are whiners.

Touch Arcade has a great info-post on what you need to know to get started quickly in Eliminate Pro and not was your precious credits going down dead-end paths.

Eliminate Pro Wiki provides a great buying guide comparing relative merits of the weapons and armor.

Eliminate Pro (Free)