A company called Ten One Design makes the smallest iPhone accessory I’ve gotten my hands on. It doesn’t even use any power or really plug into anything, which is why it’s also probably the least expensive iPhone accessory I own. I’m talking about the SoundClip, a “Passive Sound Enhancer” for the iPhone 3G.

An innovative idea
For those unaware, the iPhone 3G has three things on the bottom edge. On the right is the microphone, in the middle is the docking/power connection, and on the left is a speaker for external audio. One of the problems/tricks that I noticed some time ago with my iPhone 3G was that if I put my thumb over the speaker, I can pretty much completely mute out any audio. It’s a handy trick when I just want to cut the audio for a second, but it’s a little annoying when I’m playing a game or watching a video. I think that’s what sets this product apart for me. Instead of just another product that had been done before, Ten One innovated with something new (as far as I am aware, anyway) and something useful and did it without putting a big dent in my wallet. At only about $8, I was eager to see if it worked as well as I had hoped.

Not exciting so much, but it works well
Sometimes I get too excited about a product and this may have been one of those times. When I was told one was being sent out, I got excited about an iPhone product that could be really useful for under ten bucks. I’ve opened it up and put it to use and I’m not that excited, but I think that’s more the nature of the product than it’s living up to expectations. I guess I had the idea that I’d hear a big boost in volume, but that wasn’t the case. What I did experience is that the audio was, indeed, more focused in my direction as advertised, and the audio was noticeably louder as a result. It also did a great job of making sure my listening was not interrupted by a rogue thumb. I tried it with a video, a game, and a phone call with pretty much the same results for each. The SoundClip proved most useful during the game because I’m holding the iPhone and paying attention to the game and not my hand position. It also has a little groove to attach it to your charging cable so it won’t get lost while you’re charging it.

What’s missing?
For such a simple design, it covers most of the bases, but there’s one feature that I think would make it much better even if it bumped the price up just a little. I imagined this thing being attached to my phone all the time and I just don’t think I’d do it, but I wouldn’t want to carry it in my pocket and it’s just a bit bulky for my wallet. The solution, I think, would be to have some kind of easy-release key chain attachment so I could keep it on (and release it from) my key chain as needed.

I’d also love to see a version with the little deflection chamber for both the speaker as well as the microphone. I don’t know if it would be any benefit at all, but if it helped to focus the microphone only on my voice, helping drown out background noise, it would be a pleasant bonus and might make me more prone to keeping it attached all the time.

Should you buy one?
If you’re wondering if it’s something you should buy, you should ask yourself if you’ve been frustrated by low audio or, more importantly, accidentally covering the speaker. If so, go for it. If not, you could buy it anyway (it’s cheap enough), but you probably won’t appreciate it much.

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