Travel Tech: the Glif, a stand and tripod mount for iPhone 4s

The Glif is a small piece of plastic and metal that's one of the most useful bits of travel kit we've found for iPhone 4s. It's a combination of a stand and a tripod mount that's surprisingly useful.

We've found it solves three problems: watching movies on your iPhone on a plane (holding the thing is irritating), two-finger typing (it's an odd angle when flat on the table) and shooting that "hey, look at this" shot of a city at night when you score that hotel upgrade to a room with a view. 

While the iPhone 4's camera is great for its size, it's susceptible to a bit of wobble. Before the Glif, we ended up trying to prop the iPhone up in the right place to get the shot. And in a hotel room, there's not that much stuff to use to prop an iPhone up. (Although we finally found a use for those tri-fold advertising standups.)

The Glif doesn't look like much, but when it clips onto your iPhone 4 in several different ways you can stand the iPhone up tall (in portrait mode) at various angles for two-finger typing or reading.

Or you can stand the iPhone up wide (landscape mode) at various angles for watching movies or playing games -- remarkably handy for those small half-fold airline trays. 

If you've brought one with you, you can also screw the Glif onto a tripod -- good for FaceTime videoconferencing or shooting movies, motion shots and night cityscapes.

The Glif costs US$20, and shipping to Australia is a further US$9.21, which works out as a total of A$27.50. Its design means it will only work with the iPhone 4, and not with earlier iPhone, iPhone 3G or iPhone 3GS models.

Got a favourite travel gadget that you think other Australian Business Traveller readers might want to know about? Shoot us an email and let us know.

John Walton

Aviation journalist and travel columnist John took his first long-haul flight when he was eight weeks old and hasn't looked back since. Well, except when facing rearwards in business class.