Last week, Amazon released its first color Kindle, creating a stir in the e-reader industry. When it comes to avid e-readers here in America, Amazon is pretty much the only game in town. Despite many people trying to knock the Kindle off its perch, the brand retains about 80% of the market.
However, Bookcase is not an e-book reader. Astropad’s latest technological novelty is a case that turns your smartphone into a book, or at least its approximate dimensions. It’s a bit of plastic and allows you to hold your phone like a Kindle.
At $50 ($40 at launch), it’s pricey, but Astropad includes several related features that make the bookcase more than just a hunk of plastic. There’s a MagSafe mount between the handles that works with iPhones and many Android devices.
There’s also an NFC chip inside that launches a “companion app” on a nearby mobile phone. This also acts as a kind of bookshelf for various reading apps. It can also be used to trigger Do Not Disturb settings on compatible devices.
Bookshelves are one of those strange products that fill a hole you never knew existed. It seems silly at first, but the more you think about it, the more you doubt that something like this could actually be useful.
This is a sentiment that applies to much of Astropad’s activities. The hardware company came to market in 2017 with a solution that turns the iPad into a drawing tablet for Mac. The company made even more noise with its Luna Display, which turns tablets into second screens, a feature Apple will soon be removing from Sherlock.
These days, the company sells things like an iPad drafting stand and add-ons that mimic the feeling of drawing on paper. The bookshelf fits perfectly with those products. It is scheduled to start shipping in the second half of this year.
