Faced with a struggling economy, the best accessories in life are free

Hands are totally overrated

(Credit: Jeff Staple)

I hate buying accessories for my iPhone; it's totally counter-intuitive. You're saying that I need to buy OTHER stuff to make the phone I just bought more useful? It doesn't make sense to me, and it doesn't make sense to Jeff Staple of Staple Design either.

Check out this iPhone/iPod Touch cradle he made out of a simple binder clip that (let's be real here) you can easily liberate from your company's supply closet! It might take a bit of tweaking with pliers to get the wire to stand up on its own, but I'd rather do-it-myself than give away more of my hard earned money! Actually, now that I'm thinking about it, don't get one, I'm about to make these by the dozen and and sell them all on eBay; watch the first ones go up tonight. How does $10.99 + tax sound? Race you to the patent office!

More pics after the break.

[Paodi]

I don't know about the iPhone, but my iPod Touch came with a nifty little plastic stand that works great (unless you have a skin or shell on, that is). A coworker of mine saw me using it one day and said "oh that is what it does! I couldn't figure out what it was, so I threw mine away!"

[NYYRule]

The 2nd Gen touches don't come with that anymore... I guess it was harder/more expensive to make one that works with the curved edges (and one that fits in that little case it comes in, unless the 1st gen)

[tech_junkie14]

I hear you can also make a stand using a paperclip. You just need to bend it the right ways in order to achieve the right shape of the paperclip stand. xDD

[james2415]

check out these guys at http://gadgets4yourlife.com/categories/-iPod-%26-iPhone/ they carry a huge selection on iphone accessories

[diadmer]

Ironic spam ^^^^^^^