David Dahlquist

This week's case roundup features a number of cases offering extra functionality along with basic protection. From SigFx's life-extending battery case to USBFever's 2X zoom lens and waterproof bicycle mount, these iPhone cases add functionality to form.

SigFx

The iPad 2 has arrived at stores across the U.S., and so have customers eager to get their hands on Apple's latest tablet.

At Apple's flagship Fifth Avenue store in New York, atrocious weather kept the crowds small initially--two hours before the store opened its doors to iPad 2 customers, the queue in front barely extended out into the street. But as the clock got close to the 5 p.m. local time launch, the crowd grew, with the line stretching down the block and around the corner down Madison Avenue.

Thanks to the debut of the iPad 2, the past week has been relatively light in iPhone case news. But the new offerings are certainly worth your attention. Fisher Price's offering could turn your high-tech iPhone into the ultimate baby toy, while Let's Crystal It is on a mission to fill every square centimeter of your iPhone's surface with sparkly crystals. NXE is bringing kickstand cases back, while USBFever just wants to decorate your iPhone's home button. Read on to get the full scoop on this week's new cases.

Fisher-Price

Looking for a hands-free way to get your Tweets out into the world? Power App's Speech2Tweet, which lets you create and send tweets by speaking into your iOS device, could be what you need.

Speech2Tweet is a full-featured Twitter client that meets all of the service's current security requirements. When you run the app, it briefly calibrates itself to account for ambient noise levels, and is then ready for you to dictate your tweet. Designed to allow you to tweet when using your iPhone's on-screen keyboard is impractical, Speech2Tweet uses OpenEars open-source iOS library for English language speech recognition, as well as the CMU Pocketsphinx and CMU Flite libraries from Carnegie Mellon University.

After spending three weeks in beta, Google Chrome 10 has been officially released to the masses. The updated browser features numerous improvements, namely faster JavaScript, password synchronization, and a simplified preferences system.

The new Browser Settings interface now appears as a tab in the browser, rather than as a separate box. It also features a search box for quickly finding the settings you wish to adjust. For instance, if you want to import bookmarks from another browser, simply typing "import" in the search bar will bring up an Import Bookmarks button.

Love using Pandora's streaming music service, but hate relying on a Flash-based browser plug-in to enjoy your tunes? There's a Mac app for that, and it's called Pyrcast.

Alex Winston's Pyrcast is a simple app that lets you enjoy most of Pandora's internet radio services without having to keep the Pandora Website open in your browser. You can listen to and manage stations from your existing Pandora account, rate songs, view song history and album artwork, and use global key commands to pause and skip playback. You can also set up Growl notifications to inform you of each new song that plays-a feature that alone might be worth the price of admission.

Graf has released an upgrade to PictureShow, an iOS photo app that emulates various toy camera styles. Now at version 3.0, Picture Show sports a flashier user interface as well as numerous new effects and filters.

Similar to apps like Hipstamatic and Camera Plus, PictureShow adds artistic flair to photos on your iPhone, giving them the impression that they were taken on an old fashion toy camera. You can mix frame, light leak, and noise parameters via a shuffle button to create unexpected results, and even edit each effect via TextEdit, StyleEdit, and ColorEdit.

This week's iPhone 4 case roundup features a classy leather offering by none other than the luxury carmaker Bentley. The list also includes an aircraft-grade carbon-fiber beauty, a near-indestructible coat of armor, as well as some snazzy artistic designs. Read on for more ways to pamper your iPhone.

Bentley

If you've found yourself wondering where all your once-plentiful hard drive space has seemingly vanished to, a utility like DaisyDisk Team's DaisyDisk could prove invaluable in helping you free up long-lost disk space. Recently upgraded to version 2.0, DaisyDisk scans your disks and presents their content as interactive maps that make it easy to spot unusually large files and remove them to free up more space.

Though music and video files tend to eat up most of our hard drive space, other, less obvious files, like a long-forgotten virtual machine image, a huge cache file or an old DVD movie rip, could be taking up more of your disk space than you think. DaisyDisk makes it easy to find out how your hard drive's space is being used by giving you a color-coded, visual representation of all your mounted hard drives. From this view, you can hone in on unusually large files and determine whether or not they are needed.

The arrival of Apple's latest MacBook Pro models brings a brand new peripheral-connection technology from Intel-Thunderbolt-and with it the promise of faster data transfer speeds. But if Thunderbolt's going to deliver on that promise, peripheral makers will need to deliver products that take advantage of that technology.

A smattering of companies have already unveiled products aimed at making the most of Thunderbolt. A few other that Macworld spoke to aren't revealing their plans just yet, though they did express interest in what the new technology has to offer.

Mariner Software has released Paperless 2.0, the latest upgrade to its comprehensive digital document management software for home and business.

Formally known as ReceiptWallet, Paperless lets you scan or import receipts and other paperwork, using Optical Character Recognition (OCR) and other data entry tools to help recognize and categorize receipts and documents as PDF files. The software also features built-in search capabilities for finding and organizing receipts and documents into collections, as well as tools for tracking expenses for taxes, creating searchable PDF files for owner's manuals or other documents, and more.

Back when music was confined to a physical medium, audio enthusiasts would pay top dollar for high quality record, CD, and tape players made with the finest components. Those days are generally behind us, but if you think iTunes is the be-all and end-all of digital music playback, the folks at Audiofile would have you think again. The company's new premium digital music player, Fidelia, is aimed toward the discerning listener and offers a variety of tools to maximize your listening experience.

Fidelia sports a sleek interface that pays tribute to the premium stereo systems of the past, while offering the intuitive modern-day controls we expect in the digital age. The interface displays track details, stereo levels and audio waveforms, and offers four sizing options to suit your needs. Along with letting you create your own playlists, Fidelia can also sync with iTunes, letting you easily transfer as many or as few of your iTunes songs and playlists as you'd like.