Have you accessorised your smartphone yet? The phenomenal success of the Smartphone and in particular the iPhone has sparked an offset industry of supporting hardware devices.


Smartphone popularity has driven an increase in the mobile phone accessory market. There is an astounding selection of products available. Not just in terms of different product types, although that appears to be growing steadily, but also in terms of the selections available for each product.

Take for example smartphone cases. You can buy a secure holster, a solar charging case, a side pouch, top pouch, form fit, flip-lid, hard case, skin case, rugged, all leather, wood, colourful felt case, (complete with fashionable elastic band!), clear cases, coloured cases, and even ones from old cassette cases. You can buy a waterproof case for when you are sat by the pool, and even ones designed as a backpack to fit a stylus or spare battery in.

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This of course doesn’t include the belt clips, with or without stand. Nor does it include the fact that rather than hiding your precious item in a case you can show it off more by replaceing the front bezel with one made of gold. Not forgetting the array of cloths to keep your device clean and the accompanying scratch remover polish.

Don’t like the speakers on your iPhone or iPod? Want more volume? There is about as many docking stations and speaker combinations as there are cases. Docking stations generally come with or without lights, radios and alarm clocks. However they have come a long way since the first models were launched in 2002 for the iPod and 2008 for the smartphone. They are now available in probably any colour that you could wish for and from a range of materials. There are plastic ones, silicon and wood docking stations. You can buy a rugged outdoor docking station so you are never without your music. You can buy a hippy throwback system complete with photon ball. You can even buy speaker bags.

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Alternatively if you don’t need the speakers, you want to charge your device, or even just display it, the range of possibilities seems incredible. With
charging hammocks and 3D speaker screens proposed you may in the future go high tech. However in this era of credit crunch there are detailed instructions available to make your own dock out of CD’s or even paper.

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Want something a little more upmarket? You can dock your preferred listening device into a pc keyboard, a blue ray player or a standalone lamp. If you are with a group of friends you can wizz your iPod between each other in a remote control car or you can serenade them, playing along to your favourite tracks by making your device double up as a guitar amp, or using a DJ Mixer.

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Of course, not just concerned with the music, you can always make the most of your on-board camera by using one of the many tripods or video projectors.

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If you are on the move. You can accessorise your device to match your mode of transport. There are bike mounts, a plethera of phone kits for your car, sport armbands, and even an
iHat. The headphones to enhance your experience include blutooth earpieces and earbud yo-yo. Or you can simply rest your weary head on a speaker pillow.

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If all of this tech in one little device is too confusing for you there is also a vast range of books available to help explain it all.

Check out these two articles on The 14 Silliest Smartphone Accessories: How to Humiliate a BlackBerry, Embarrass an iPhone and 12 must-have accessories for your smartphone to see which ones you should be using.