Hocus Pocus Locus

I’ve been a fan of the Glif iPhone stand & mount since the original Kickstarter project was created to fund its development. I’ve had several case stands in the past and to date they’ve been flimsy, bulky or otherwise inflexible. The Glif is solidly constructed and has no extraneous hinges or attachments that could easily break. It’s a solid piece of molded, rubberized plastic. In a word, I’d call it elegant.

There are many other reasons to like the Glif:

• It works in portrait or landscape
• You can use it to attach your phone to a tripod using its standard 1/4”-20 threaded mount
• You can remove it easily when you’re not using it
• It doesn’t obstruct any ports or buttons
• The rubberized grip is sturdy but at the same time won’t scratch your phone
• It’s solid, well-made, and easily fits into your pocket

You can of course leave the Glif attached to your phone when you’re not using it, but for some reason I tend to remove mine when not in use. I like my phone to be as unadorned as possible. Its easy gripping mechanism makes this child’s play compared to other cases that require fiddling or even a coin to pry open.

One of the killer applications for the Glif is for hands-free FaceTime calls. Since you can attach the Glif anywhere along the side of your iPhone, you can effectively adjust your viewing angle. This comes in handy when you’re trying to point the camera so that you’re visible during the call.

One downside of the Glif is that it doesn’t work with thick, bulky cases. However, it does work with the thin screen protectors which I prefer to use on my own phone.

For $20, the Glif is a steal. Get yours at http://www.theglif.com.

• You can rest all of your fingers on it and just move your index finger.
• Pinch-to-zoom is much more reliable than on the MacBook trackpad. On the MacBook you could zoom multiple times on one gesture. With the trackpad, regardless of how pronounced you perform your pinch gesture, it only zooms one step. Come to think of it, I don’t know if this is due to the new drivers; if it is, maybe it’s fixed on the Macbooks too.
• You can still use the thumb-click + index finger to drag things around. On the 27” iMac I was testing it on, I was able to drag a window all the way across the screen without lifting my finger.
• Three finger drag works for more than just windows. It is a general drag feature. This means it also works to select text.
• Right clicking using the bottom-right-hand corner is touchy. It did not always register as a right click.
• As you’d expect, accuracy is not as good as with a mouse but it’s perhaps a little better than the MacBook trackpad.
• After using it for a while, the fingers that I’m not using are more strained than they would be with a mouse. It’s probably because I’m trying not to touch the pad with them.