Kenu Stance compact tripod holds your iPhone, opens beers

What's better than a little tripod for your iPhone? A little tripod for your iPhone that doubles as a bottle opener! That's the idea behind the innovative Kenu Stance ($29.95), a new product from the accessory manufacturer that also produces the Highline case and Airframe car mount.

Specifications

• Dimensions: 3.11 x 0.87 x 0.39 inches (79mm x 22mm x 10mm)

• Weight: 1.2 oz (34 grams)

Design

I've tested a number of iPhone and iPad tripods over the years. Most of them work on the idea that you have either a special case or a spring-loaded jaws to hold the device in place, then a set of legs down below to prop up the device. The problem with that is that most of those tripods require that you remove your existing iPhone case, and the spring-loaded grips weren't designed with the monster iPhone 6 Plus in mind.

Kenu neatly sidesteps both of those limitations with a nifty little plastic Lightning connector surrogate that just plugs into the iPhone's Lightning port. Note that you may still have to remove your iPhone case to plug the Stance all the way into the port depending on the configuration of the bottom of the case.

The Stance isn't bulky at all - in fact, you can pop it into a pocket and you'll barely notice it. My only concern is that it's so small that it could be easy to lose, so a way of connecting it to a keychain would have been a nice addition.

Kenu calls the patent-pending plastic Lightning mount a MicroMount, and it's attached to a plastic ball-and-pivot joint. That, in turn, is connected to three little zinc alloy legs with plastic non-slip feet. Some brilliant designer at Kenu made the right call and added a bottle opener to one of the legs.

Functionality

Does the Stance work with the monstrous iPhone 6 Plus? Inquiring minds want to know. The answer is yes, absolutely!

It works both in portrait and landscape modes. You'll want to make sure that the short legs are fully rotated so that the tripod has the widest footprint possible. The iPhone 6 Plus works great in portrait mode on the Stance, but will need to be oriented as close to vertically as possible. If you tilt the 6 Plus more than about 15 degrees from vertical, the entire assemblage wants to tip over.

In landscape orientation, you collapse the legs and use them as a prop for the phone. It's possible to have the iPhone perpendicular to the surface it's sitting on, or you can tilt it for easy viewing. I found the perpendicular setting to be great when shooting landscape time-lapse photos with the camera in the 6 Plus.

Conclusion

The Kenu Stance tripod is incredibly small, very stable tripod for all Lightning-equipped iPhones, and the addition of a bottle opener to the device should make it the choice of every beer-drinking iPhone owner. My only complaints are the rather high price and the fact that the Stance could be easy to lose.

Rating: 3-1/2 stars out of 4 stars possible