A Joke iPhone Sticker Turns Into a Business | Hacker News Reader

A Joke iPhone Sticker Turns Into a Business

bits.blogs.nytimes.com

157 pointsevansolomon45 comments

Freakin brilliant.

If there's one thing people love, whether they want to admit it or not, it's to show off that they have an iPhone.

Now there's a colorful band-aid that goes on the base of the iPhone 4. It might as well just say "Look, I have an iPhone" right on it.

Some iPhone owners would love a way for it to stand out even more that they have an iPhone - well, here you go.

With this product, the FLAW in the iPhone has become a way for people to decorate their phone so that EVERYONE will notice they have an iPhone, and not just any iPhone, the latest and greatest iPhone!

Little success stories like this are fantastic.

Yep. I just paid $5 for a bandaid sticker for exactly this reason.

And people think Apple's going to issue a recall. Heh.

I can't help but wonder if Steve Jobs wants to kill these guys, or give them a medal.

Easy: he wants to kill them and then give them a medal posthumously.

As long as they can make them faster than bumpers - it'll be a win.

I can't wait to gift the remaining 5 Antenn-aids to my other iphone4 compadres.

Are people still showing off their iPhones in 2010? To me, all an iPhone says nowadays is "I may be out on the town right now, but if my boss emails me I'll be able to reply within seconds."

If you ask me, the next trend will be obnoxiously low-utility phones: no apps, no email, nothing that would appeal to your average fourteen-year-old girl. See this graph from my favourite fashion site, which ranks the awesomeness of phones as a combination of "exclusivity" and "senseless lack of utility":

http://www.magnificentbastard.com/posts/ask-the-mb-portable-...

Personally, I really want a DynaTAC. Of course a DynaTAC won't work with modern cellphone networks, so I really want to get an old DynaTAC shell and insert the components from a new twenty-dollar phone. Maybe I could sell that on Etsy.

> Are people still showing off their iPhones in 2010? To me, all an iPhone says nowadays is "I may be out on the town right now, but if my boss emails me I'll be able to reply within seconds."

I disagree for a number of reasons, but the main four are:

* I am directionally challenged and informationally hungry. A smartphone is both a lightweight GPS (which saves my life) and a direct pathway into wikipedia in my pocket (which feeds my brain). Can't get that with a low-end phone.

* I use my phone to keep up with various mailing lists (not my boss, professional mail account isn't even on the phone)

* I use my phone for offline articles reading via InstaPaper, it's often far more confortable (and simpler) than doing it on a laptop, and I can get 10mn of reading any time I have no current activity

* Because I have an iPhone (though it's a lowly 3G) I have quite a number of pretty nice video games, so the phone doubles up as a lightweight portable console and avoids having to carry around a DS or a PSP (though it does severely dent the battery life of the machine)

And other, more social people, will no doubt be using their phones for their twittering, facebooking and all other multicast communication channels which are entirely unavailable on a Nokia 3310.

Not saying this couldn't breed a backlash due to information overload, but seriously userland "smart" phones have been going strong for nearly a decade in basically every first-world country but the US. Only in the US was it confined to the business side until 2007 and the iPhone broke free from the idea that smartphone = business.

Plus, look at computers. They have almost never regressed, because they are a tool like phones. While select few (myself occasionally included) will always seek old-fashioned simplicity, not only is that rarely the overall trend but it almost never applies to information-age hardware. I like having stupid-simple hand and power tools, for example, but you will rarely catch me asking to have features removed from my computer. I suspect this is tied to the fact that actual physical tools have one job and one job only, whereas a computer/phone/etc is a multi-tool.

There is the netbook trend, and that whole minimalist trend might hit cell phones some time. But notice netbooks are rarely any 'stupider' than a full blown computer- they are just smaller, a bit slower, and cheaper. Yet, a modern netbook will still blow a 8-10 year old computer out of the water.

I really want to get an old DynaTAC shell and insert the components from a new twenty-dollar phone.

You can get something pretty close.

http://www.babikenshop.com/triband-retro-brick-mobile-cell-p...

Sweet! Want.

“Jitterbug” phones are marketed as simple, no-frill for certain demographics. (Mostly senior citizens and the vision impared.) IIRC, the outfit also tried to market a phone for little kids called the “Ladybug,” but that didn’t get far.

http://www.jitterbug.com/

Consider the MOTOFONE. Fancy e-Ink display, but has battery life measured in days. Designed for the third world market, it can text message... badly, and that's it beyond good call quality.

To me, all an iPhone says nowadays is "I may be out on the town right now, but if my boss emails me I'll be able to reply within seconds."

That sounds more like a Blackberry

This one is much better. Adding function to form: http://twitpic.com/262n5r/full

Shouldn't that be the opposite(line through the "end call") when placed over the gap or placed next to the gap with an arrow?

It's also thirty dollars. Holy crap!

That's how Apple would have priced it.

Heh, but I think an accessory for an Apple product should have an Apple-level attention to detail: iOS 4 changed the text on that button to just "End", not "End Call". Granted, the joke works better when it is explicit.

Not mentioned in the article, but this band aid style sticker is a reference to Job's joke at the press conference (from memory):

  We will be giving bumber cases until September 30th. 
  By then there might be some other solution, maybe Eminem
  will release a band aid for the iPhone which everyone will
  want to use.

I'm reminded of Jason L Baptiste's comment/post about becoming a millionaire in 3 years:

"Look for the accessory ecosystem ... "

(http://bit.ly/cjXq8f)

Good example

Proper link: http://jasonlbaptiste.com/startups/how-to-become-a-millionai...

Just out of curiosity, why did you go through the trouble of hiding the link behind bit.ly?

To me, it looks cleaner–i.e. that link was a footnote, more or less, and I'd rather my comment be the focus (not a long URL)

I have a bookmarklet, so I really didn't go through any "trouble"

Fair enough but url shorteners break the web[1][2]. That is quite clearly not a good trade-off. I avoid url shorteners unless they be absolutely necessary.

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/URL_shortening#Criticism_and_pr...

[2] http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1416090

HN shortens URLs automatically when you paste them in.

Obnoxious example: http://www.hugeurl.com/?YzUxNzllMmZjNTk5ZDBjYzIwMjYwN2VlZjFk...

Just curious, how do they produce them? Or is it just repackaged generic band aids? It's one thing to come up with a joke, another to come up with a production channel...

Unless I'm mistaken, it's only a decal and not a real band-aid.

I see - I suppose there are lots of printing services that offer printing of custom stickers.

Yeah :) I'm soon to be a co-owner in a digital printing company. Thinking about make some of those myself ;)

Well deserved, if nothing for their funny advertising copy:

For those who haven't seen it: http://antenn-aid.com/

"Technical Specifications: Uhm... it's a sticker"

My favorite is "Colors you can see with the human retina".

Hilarious! Have they received notices from Apple yet?

I wonder if a thin coat of clear nail polish would accomplish the same thing in a less ugly way.

The interesting point is the infrastructure behind this. Have an idea and instead of needing to build factories, employ salesmen, visit customers - you can build an online store in minutes (all the billing and payment handled by a dozen sites), get the stickers printed by another online store and advertise on HN, Reddit etc.

Build a business empire (ok a small principality) in an evening!

How did the handle supplies/manufacturing? Is it already available bandaid with narrow dimensions?

They are vinyl stickers, so there are already many places that will make custom ones.

I was thinking the other day that iphone users need a little handle that folds out (like a stand on a picture frame) so they can hold the phone from the back instead of the phone itself.

You'd just slip your hand through the handle and never touch the phone.

Something like this? http://www.amazon.com/Heavy-Double-Locking-Suction-Hooks/dp/...

That's actually not a bad idea!

Yeah but instead of a hook, more like a suitcase handle that you can slip your entire hand through.

It looks a lot better than the official bumpers.

Absolutely brilliant. Such a simple (and a very trendy+elegant!) solution to a well-publicized problem.

Simple maybe. But elegant? It looks ridiculous. Who wouldn't just put a bit of gaffa tape or sticky tape on. This is the sort of shit that Apple should dread - being perceived as a pretentious brand in mobile devices, as they became in personal computing.

Also, there's not a chance in hell Apple would sell those things for $4.99 a six-pack. It would be more like $40 for a single sticker.

Hmm, I wouldn't touch it unless I know it will come off w/o much residue, which the site doesn't say.

It looks like there might be a few more people unhappy with their antenna than Steve Jobs wants us to believe.

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