Philosopher invents clever iPhone case

I liked the idea of the product enough on first glance that I went straight to the pledge rewards, and nearly pledged the $25 without knowing any more. That's an affordable price for any case at all - most start around $40.<p>Since the images happened to be broken when I looked at the page, I decided to watch the video to learn something about the product.<p>You can guess how well that went.<p>I tried not to hide behind my hands while he danced and made bad jokes, because I figured that sooner or later, he'd demonstrate some details.<p>By the time the three minutes and eight seconds of self-love had ended, I not only didn't want to contribute anymore, I never wanted to see him speak again. I've never had a Kickstarter video talk me <i>out</i> of supporting a project before.

The video is good exercise in "You can't please everyone."<p>Comments here are about 50-50 "love the dance", "hate the dance", and with a sparser spattering of "cool" and "who cares" to the philosopher designation.<p>He doesn't need to win everyone, or even a significant percentage of the population. Attracting the 33% or so that like the dancing and aren't alienated by the philosopher tag gets him a large enough market.<p>Without the dancing philosopher, essentially no one would have heard of his product.

I think it would be better if, instead of circles, the pop-sockets were octagons for little flat edges depending on the angle you were using to rest the device.<p>And the video? The "joke" never ended and got down to details about the product.

Throughout the video, I was just hoping he would stop dancing and show me exactly how the product works. While I appreciate being entertained, a demo/informational video would have been more conducive to the goal of getting me to pledge some funds.

The success of this project is proof positive that pitching <i>really</i> matters. You could imagine someone pitching the same project without a dance-filled, much less entertaining video, and not creating the same excitement. Congrats to the prof and his team!

Pretty cool, but what exactly qualifies someone as a "philosopher", and how is that relevant to this product?

Looks ugly, not something I would use. Really though, how often do you need to prop your iPhone up? This is something I rarely find myself needing to do with my phone.

The music is entirely composed of samples from commercial songs, remixed together by Girl Talk, who re-licensed them as Creative Commons Attribution / Non-Commercial.

Reminds me of this from Joel Spolsky's interview in Founders at Work:<p>"I remember one of the stupidest things I ever wrote on Joel on Software. I was giving advice on writing technical specifications, and I said, "Be funny." The reason that was stupid was that I later realized that most people, when they try to be funny, aren't that funny. They just look kind of sad. That's like, "Be born to rich parents." It's not that useful advice for most people."<p>I don't use Apple products so I'm not in the target market for this in any way, but count me among the people that think the painfully unfunny video hurts more than helps.

This guy is dancing his future-millionaire-dance in advance. Can't blame a guy who designs a nice little product like that.<p>Can we put out better apps now too with something like this?<p>There's a significantly higher chance a user [whom is using this case/multi-widget] will be able to control the touch interface more efficiently (and dynamically).

To whoever made this video:<p>1. Delete this video. 2. Make a video explaining, how it's designed, what is it good for, why it's useful, why should people buy it. Focus only in its visual design and its features. I want to see how does it look and what are the main features. Avoid all other things.

I use The Glif from Studio Neat (<a href="http://www.studioneat.com/products/glif-for-iphone-4" rel="nofollow">http://www.studioneat.com/products/glif-for-iphone-4</a>), which was also a kickstarter project. It's a stand and a tripod mount, very elegant and small.

haha what a fantastic video. I wish this guy was my professor

The dancing was very ill-advised.

So the article for an iPhone case relies on flash? Wtf?

Cool case, I can see myself actually using this one.<p>It would have been cool to see how the popouts extend and rotate but I think we got the idea from all the different positions they were sitting in.<p>Authentic dancing also helped a lot that this product is dance-party ready, if you use an app like Djay.<p>For anyone wanting detailed deathstar level specifications in a video, I'm sure more information will come out. I'm curious how the popouts work.

I haven't listened through yet but a quick glance at the track list suggests this is the Girl Talk mashup from the soundtrack: <a href="http://soundcloud.com/walt74/girl-talk-all-day" rel="nofollow">http://soundcloud.com/walt74/girl-talk-all-day</a> (unless Girl Talk is using Flava in Ya Ear in multiple mashups ;)

Thought the iphone case was going to help me reason with siri or something. Instead I had to turn my speakers down and fight the urge to move to the country side away from noisy, abrasive hunks of plastic. I am glad he's doing what gets him going though and I mildly envy his lack of public inhibition.

What a horrible video.

Upon seeing those 'sockets', I thought it'd be something along the lines of this: <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YvQzxcYZuss" rel="nofollow">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YvQzxcYZuss</a>

Can someone explain what the benefits of the case are in your pocket? In his video, it's like the main focus. Can't it still fly out if you're dancing just as easily as any other case?

I expected more something like a case that says "I'm an iPhone" he says that this proves machine can be self-conscious.

Haha! What an awesome video, I want to contribute because of the video alone (don't have an iphone)

I think the LEGO case (www.smallworks.com) is more interesting. Modify it to be what you want.

this guy was my TA at a philosophy class at nyu 11 years ago. cool!

I thought he said “Hot Pockets”. Imagine my disappointment.

i thought the sockets were speakers. making the noise he was dancing to. nuts.

It would be even better if the sockets had suction cups so you could attach it to your dashboard.

I just want to give this guy money. Hilarious.

Most ridiculous video ever. &#60;3

Do you think that's clever ?! Wait until you see this case : <a href="http://www.shapeways.com/model/207851/" rel="nofollow">http://www.shapeways.com/model/207851/</a>