iLounge Announces Annual Awards, Growth of iLounge Pavilion at 2013 CES

IRVINE, Calif., Dec. 17, 2012 /PRNewswire/ -- New Apple devices have dominated holiday shopping lists for the better part of a decade, and as they've become smaller and more fragile, their accessories have grown increasingly important. As the world's leading independent reviewer of Apple hardware, accessories, and software, iLounge has covered thousands of different products since 2001, annually announcing awards for the best releases of each year, as well as the best upcoming products for the next year. With 2012 drawing to a close and 2013 just around the corner, iLounge is offering readers access to an amazing wealth of honest, objective purchasing advice.

If you're still shopping for the holidays, iLounge can help. With nearly four million copies downloaded to date, iLounge's latest Buyers' Guides spotlight this year's best Apple devices, accessories, apps, and games. Released in November, iLounge's 208-page 2013 iPhone + iPod Buyers' Guide is the definitive book on this year's top third-party products, including Best of the Year Awards across 18 different categories. Notable winners include:

• JBL, winner of the Apple Accessory Maker of the Year Award, as well as Speaker of the Year and Accessory of the Year Awards for the incredible portable speaker Flip.
• Case makers Adonit, Griffin, Incipio, and Speck, for the year's best iPod, iPhone, and iPad cases.
• Just Mobile and Scosche, for the year's best car accessory (Highway Pro) and headphones (Realm RH656m/md), respectively.
• Algoriddim, Apple, Disney, Epic Games, Google, Sega, and StoryToys, developers of the year's best apps and games across different Apple devices.

iLounge's second publication, The New iPad Buyers' Guide, offers an additional 156 pages focused on iPad accessories and software, as well as looks at the latest Apple TV, and profiles of leading accessory and app developers. Both Buyers' Guides are available now from iLounge.com/library, alongside 17 earlier editions published since 2004.

"We have made iLounge's Buyers' Guides available in PDF format at no charge, as a service to the global Apple user community," notes Dennis Lloyd, iLounge's Publisher. "With tens of millions of downloads to date, these are the most popular guides to Apple accessories published anywhere in the world -- and the best."

Want to see next year's most exciting new Apple accessories, all in one place? On January 8, the iLounge Pavilion will open at the 2013 International CES in Las Vegas, featuring a record-breaking 120,000 square feet of new iPad, iPhone, iPod, and Mac products. This is the largest iLounge Pavilion in CES history, now stretching from the North Hall of the Las Vegas Convention Center to the adjacent LVH (Las Vegas Hotel) to accommodate over 500 exhibitors from around the world.

New Apple-related product debuts at CES will include brand new Bluetooth 4/Smart accessories, some of the first Lightning connector accessories, and AirPlay speakers, as well as early cases for the just-released iPad mini, iPhone 5, iPod nano, and iPod touch.

"iLounge has developed a brand new CES mini-site to provide live coverage of new Apple products directly from the heart of the iLounge Pavilion," says Jeremy Horwitz, Editor-in-Chief of iLounge.com and the Buyers' Guides. "As CES and the iLounge Pavilion have continued to grow, we've increased our staff to handle new products spanning over two football fields worth of space, and can't wait to guide Apple fans through the best new releases at the show."

About iLounge

iLounge, Inc. is the exclusive partner of the Consumer Electronics Association for the iLounge Pavilion, a collection of iPad, iPhone, iPod, and Mac products that is now the largest dedicated exhibition area at the International Consumer Electronics Show. As the world's leading provider of iPod, iPhone, iPad, and iTunes information, iLounge is fully independent from Apple and vendors of related hardware, software, and services, with offices in Irvine, California and East Amherst, New York. Founded only days after Apple announced the first iPod in 2001, iLounge has exploded in popularity, today boasting millions of visitors and tens of millions of page views each month. Praised for years as "the ultimate in product reviews and tutorials on all things iPod," iLounge and its team have been spotlighted by the Associated Press, CNBC, Los Angeles Times, The New York Times, and many other leading publications.

SOURCE iLounge.com