3-D printing: It’s just like knitting, right, only more high-tech? No? OK, fine. At least I tried.
But you know what really is high-tech and just like knitting? These iPhone cases, which are 3-D printed in the shape of knitting. Try to spoil that one for me, you grumpy old sourpuss you. Just try…
I will be ordering a Button 2.0 for every single one of my shirts. I will even be sewing them onto my t-shirts in order to make them more useful. Why? As you can see in the image above, Button 2.0 is a simple upgrade to boring old Button 1.0 which turns it into a grippy place to clip your iPhone’s headphone cable.
I’m totally against the wrapping of wires, ever since being shouted at on a movie location for over-enthusiastically coiling audio and power cables around my thumb and elbow. Apparently that’s not how it’s done by the pros, and the experience has made me wince every time I see somebody stretching their headphone cables around their iPod.
Still, I’m clearly in the (superior) minority, and the The Wrap proves it. It’s a plastic 3-D printed widget which wrangles your cable into order.
Until now, most of the 3-D printed items I have seen have been slightly scratchy, brittle-feeling plastic prototypes sent to me by Kickstarter pitch-men.
But now Shapeways has teamed up with SoundCloud to bring us this cool-looking iPhone case which really shows the potential of 3-D printing. Using a custom app, you can freeze the sound-wave of your favorite piece of music and have it immortalized in a plastic case.
Why spend $20 on a good-quality, purpose-made macro lens for your iPhone when you could spend $10 on 3-D printing your own holder and another $4 for a glass lens to put inside it? That, my friends, is a saving of six whole dollars. Six American dollars that Appsman — the maker of this clever lens — is doubtless frittering away on a night of frenzied celebration. And if you, too, want to make yourself six bucks richer, then read on.
