THE FJORDEN IPHONE GRIP
The control of a digital camera, with the portability of an iPhone
It can be assumed, we trust, that everyone reading this knows what human cephalosomatic anastomosis is. No? Oops, sorry.
Cephalosomatic anastomosis is head transplantation, which was once considered science fiction but is now occasionally discussed rather seriously in medical journals. The idea is that if you have a good brain but a diseased body, your head could one day soon be mounted atop the working body of a brain-dead donor, and, voilà, you’re as good as new.
Or is it the other person that’s as good as new? This is the conundrum. If my head is installed on your body, is the resultant chimera more you or more me? I may have a new body, but isn’t it you wearing the new head?
This new gadget, Fjorden, a grip with ergonomically perfect electronic controls that mimic a camera’s—for exposure, shutter speed, I.S.O., manual focus, and more—turns your iPhone into a chimera of sorts. It’s arguable whether an iPhone with a Fjorden is a camera with a built-in cell phone or a cell phone with an integrated camera.
The Norwegian-made Fjorden began to be advertised heavily on social media more than a year ago, and your columnist was intrigued. But after repeated requests for more information went unanswered, I assumed it was just some junk sourced in China and juiced up with slick advertising, like so many products on social media. So I forgot all about Fjorden.
Then, just weeks ago, something totally unexpected happened: a press release landed announcing that Fjorden had been bought by Leica. There could be no greater confirmation that it was a serious product. It turns out that Fjorden also developed the Leica LUX phone app. After this writer got up from the floor, he e-mailed Leica. Perhaps the company had just been shy and Scandinavian about self-promotion?
Within 48 hours, a sample of Fjorden’s $140 Plus bundle was mailed from Oslo. And it’s very good. The hardware itself is not exactly Leica quality—it’s quite plasticky and light. But, boy, it’s well designed.
You really feel you have a small, thin camera in your hand. The grip shape makes the device much easier to hold than a phone on its own. It comes with an app that does a lot of what the Leica LUX app does, but Fjorden also works with the Leica app, if you already have it.
In an ideal world—and under Leica’s wing this could happen—Fjorden would develop a version with an eyepiece, to approximate a real camera even more.
But then it’ll feel even odder when, on that rare occasion someone actually calls you, you have to bring your chimera camera up to your ear.
The Final ZE8000 MK2 Earbuds
Headphones from Tokyo that sound like they’re made just for you
Some 18 months ago, we introduced you to a very niche Japanese headphone brand, Final, and their strange-looking but wonderfully refined ZE8000 earbuds.
They still make that model, but now they have an update, the ZE8000 MK2, which is one of the best pairs of wireless in-ear headphones we’ve come across. For a little more money than the latest AirPods Pro, the ZE8000 MK2 offer something special—that is, in addition to being so odd-looking that the average mugger will probably pass on them and target an AirPods wearer instead. There’s a clarity and realism in the sound they provide, especially in what Final calls 8K Sound mode.
Final is a geeky, small Tokyo brand that’s working on a new method of customizing to individual users the sound their headphones deliver. They say their quest is to improve the “timbre” of the audio, which is a tricky quality to grasp. But they are extremely serious about it. Your columnist was a test subject for an experiment in London, where they spent about an hour taking measurements and photographing me wearing a strange cloth helmet. This was followed by a lengthy Zoom session and the arrival in the mail of the original ZE8000 MK1 attuned to my own head.
The adaptations they installed in what they call “Dummy head Mode” make the MK1 model sound like the MK2, if a little quieter. There is talk that next year this service may be available in selected cities, which will be quite exciting for audiophiles. In the meantime, the off-the-shelf MK2 is pretty remarkable.
THE HMD SKYLINE SMARTPHONE
At long last, you can replace your phone screen at home
Nokia is the original Finnish cell-phone brand and seems to get passed from owner to owner as the decades fly by without producing anything very interesting.
They have, however, spawned a sub-brand that is not only slickly presented but makes the highest-quality affordable Android smartphones we’ve seen.
H.M.D. (Human Mobile Devices) are rather beautiful objects, but their big and very contemporary special feature is that they are user-repairable by anyone with basic screwdriver skills. So if you crack a screen, you can replace it yourself for around $100. Same thing if you need a new battery a few years down the line.
The newest model, the Skyline, has deluxe features such as a 50-megapixel selfie camera and fingerprint recognition. It also has, frankly, gimmicks. Like, if you choose, tracking your screen time and encouraging you to switch off when you’ve been online enough.
But the gorgeous screen and sleek bodywork belie its price, which is half or even a third of that of a high-end iPhone.
THE LIBREOFFICE DOCUMENT CONVERTER
Rescue your “long-gestating” novel from Word-document limbo
The question of how long tech companies should “support” their “legacy products” and at what stage it’s acceptable to “sunset” them, to use three irritating but hard-to-top industry terms, can be fraught.
It’s one thing for your smartphone not to accept updates seven or eight years after the model ceases production, but when your “software-defined vehicle”—i.e., most modern cars with key features that are regularly updated online—no longer works fully after a similar period of time, you are entitled to be extremely annoyed.
You won’t lose the use of an expensive piece of technology when you open a Microsoft Word document from 20-plus years ago and receive the message “This document uses a file type that is no longer supported.” But it is dispiriting if it foils your plan to return to the Great American Novel you started in 1998.
There are solutions for the implausibly tech-competent. When your columnist tried to open an old document recently, Microsoft suggested this easy fix: “In newer versions of Word for Mac, you can open Word files saved in OpenDocument Format (.odt, .ods, .odp) and convert them to editable Microsoft OOXML files (.docx, .xlsx, .pptx). You’ll need to be connected to the internet to open ODF files and convert them to OOXML files.” Is that clear? Not to most normal humans, I would guess.
There is a much cleaner, more user-friendly way that’s not only free but preserves most of your original Word document formatting too. Just download the relevant version of LibreOffice and select your file, and minutes later your “legacy document” will spring into glorious life. The relief of seeing your mothballed baby live again is palpable.
LibreOffice is the product of a beneficent, nerdy nonprofit based in Berlin and called the Document Foundation. The members, advisory board, and global fans seem to have a fine time at conferences and events, and there’s even LibreOffice merchandise, such as T-shirts, caps, tote bags, and mugs.
If you’re as grateful as I was, you can simply donate to say thank you without having to wear a shirt that says, Free Office Suite. Fun Project. Fantastic People.
Based in London and New York, AIR MAIL’s tech columnist, Jonathan Margolis, spent more than two decades as a technology writer at the Financial Times. He is also the author of A Brief History of Tomorrow, a book on the history of futurology
