Back in October, we ran a little article called "Incredibly cheap iPod stand", part of our Wacky iPod Accessories series. The basic premise was that you could use a nice little mesh business card holder as an iPod stand and save a few bucks, as shown in Figure A.

FIGURE A


Here's our simple iPod stand. Roll over picture for a larger image.

Now, reader Roger Chaplin apparently thought he was too good for our cheesy budget tip. He wrote this to us:

Nice little article. It brought back memories of the early days of the US Robotics Pilot, and some of the innovative accessories that started to appear for it.

But while reading the article I had to stop and check my calendar. I thought maybe I had skipped 6 months into April.

Yeah, yeah. April Fool's Day. We get the joke. Very funny. But, apparently the joke is on us both, because Meritline.com is now offering the "Two Pack Z Stand for iPhone", as shown in Figure B.

FIGURE B


I love it when a plan comes together. Roll over picture for a larger image.

According to the Meritline Web page:

Watching videos on your iPhone just got a little more comfortable. Z Stand for iPhone holds your iPhone at a comfortable viewing angle, while allowing you to take full advantage of the iPhone's 3.5" widescreen display.

Even more amusing, they list "features" of the Z Stand as:

• Z-shaped design offers maximum stability
• Angled for comfortable viewing on desk
• Engineered for horizontal use
• Mesh material reduces heat from iPhone
• Does not block headphone output or dock connector
• No moving parts to slip or break
• Ideal for music, movies, pictures, Web, etc.

I am so amused. The idea for the business card holder came from Managing Editor Denise Amrich. This isn't the first time one of her great ideas was picked up by another company.

Before Computing Unplugged was Computing Unplugged, it was a magazine called PalmPower Magazine, so named by Denise. We even went so far as to get an exclusive license to use the word "Palm" in the name from what was then Palm Computing.

As many of you know, Palm now refers to its Palm OS devices as "Palm Powered". Think they came up with that all on their own? Think again. PalmPower as a name existed years before "Palm Powered" was a branding description.

I'm beginning to think Denise should be getting royalties for all her great ideas. And, so, Roger, before you go off and mock, I suggest you reconsider. What you might think is an April Fool's joke may well be the Z shape of things to come.

For more than 20 years, David Gewirtz, the author of Where Have All The Emails Gone? and The Flexible Enterprise, has analyzed current, historical, and emerging issues relating to technology, competitiveness, and policy. David is the Editor-in-Chief of the ZATZ magazines, is the Cyberterrorism Advisor for the International Association for Counterterrorism and Security Professionals, and is a member of the instructional faculty at the University of California, Berkeley extension. He can be reached at david@zatz.com and you can follow him at http://www.twitter.com/DavidGewirtz.