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iRetrofone goes steampunk
We've posted about the great iRetrofone handset base for the iPhone before -- it's really just a block of resin, but having an actual handset hooked up to your iPhone around the house makes for some pretty nostalgic phone calls. The iRetrophone's creator Scott Freeland said he would be hard at work on new designs, and now he's gone a little Steampunk with the latest one, as you can see above courtesy of iPhone Savior. It's designed specifically for the iPhone 4, and has both an audio hookup and a USB connection ready to go -- just plug your iPhone into the base and start calling. It's not quite as nostalgic as the old handset, of course, but I like the steampunk aesthetic. And for $450 plus $25 shipping, you better like it. Still, as an art piece (the whole thing is actually cast in copper, rather than just the resin of the first one), it's a pretty unique piece of tech.
Behind the scenes with the iRetrofone's creator
I really enjoyed seeing this retro handset base for the iPhone (even if I did mistake the shipping charge for the price -- sorry about that). Now, iPhone Savior has a nice piece up about the base's designer, Florida artist Scott Freeland. Since news about the set went live, he's apparently been bombarded by requests, and he's actually been working on making it easier to make them and deliver them to customers; he's currently working with two resin molds and has tweaked his process a bit. It sounds like the iRetrofone is already a successful product. When you hear what he has to say about the handset, it's not hard to determine why. The model is based on a 1937 phone, and Freeland says it hit him in the same nostalgic way it does most of us: "As a sculptor, when I need something in my life I make it ... That was the phone I had as a kid. I looked online until I saw a phone that looked like what I had, and then I made it." He's making more, too. As you can see above, he's got pink and clear models being made already, and he says he wants to make about six to eight more versions, including crazy ideas like "a skull with the iPhone in it." That one doesn't sound quite as, ahem, nostalgic, but it's still interesting. The iRetrofone is available on Etsy for US $195, and while it's on back order right now, the page says it'll be available in about two weeks.
iRetrofone Base: perfect for homes with cutting-edge GPRS reception
Still looking for that perfect iPhone dock? Struggling to convince ma and pa that ditching the landline really is the best thing to do? Freeland Studios is up for helping with both quandaries, as the handmade iRetrofone Base provides both a perfect resting place for your iPhone (or any phone, really) and a pinch of vintage to boot. Cast from resin with the utmost care, this here adornment can be ordered in both black and clear, though you'll have to wait around a fortnight for one of the $195 devices to actually ship. Up next? A resin-based bag phone holster for those who constantly lose their smartphone between the seat and center console. Thanks for repeating yourself, history.
Beautiful retro handset base for the iPhone
It's the weekend, which seems like the perfect time for a groovy retro item like this one. The iRetrofone is a handset base for the iPhone that brings an old-school aesthetic to your new-school touchscreen cell phone. We've seen cool handsets before, but this one goes all the way. Any iPhone can sit firmly in that space where the rotary dial would be, you can pick up a dialer app from the App Store, and then there's room for the dock to get plugged in, and the handset itself plugs into the headphone jack. "But Mike," you may say, "there's no actual value to that. All it does is make the slim and trim iPhone into a bulky mass of resin." And you'd be right. But the shape of that bulky mass of resin happens to bring back some excellent memories for me, of cradling a handset while chatting with friends and family, and hanging the phone back up when it had fallen off the hook, and carrying the base with me while pacing during an important call. While the item on Etsy is now sold out, if it was there, $15 would be a small price to I'd happily pay* to revisit those memories. [via TDW] Update: Whoops, $15 is the shipping -- the handset is $195, which seems much more reasonable for a custom-shaped piece of resin wired and ready to go. That's not such a small price, but the memories are still powerful.
