So simple that it only merits a few paragraphs, Handstands’ iGrip/iSticky Pad ($8.99) is an odd gimmick of an iPod car mount – the sort of product you’ll either like or not. We weren’t thrilled, but wouldn’t be surprised if people try it just to see if it works in their cars.
iGrip is a piece of white quasi-adhesive rubber that uses HandStands’ “Sticky Pad” technology to hold its back on a flat surface and items on its front. We call it quasi-adhesive because it has a moist and vaguely sticky feeling, yet isn’t covered in goo that can be washed off – in fact, washing only renews its tack. The texture is mildly off-putting, but thankfully carries no odor and doesn’t need to be interacted with unless you’re sticking to or removing your iPod from its surface.
In theory, you mount iGrip on your car’s dashboard and lay your iPod on top of it, and in practice, if you have an entirely or largely flat dashboard surface, it will work. Our test car didn’t, and though its curved surface was far less than ideal to hold the iPod in place, iGrip kept it mostly stable – just neither in a position nor as ideally firm as we would have liked.
For about the same price, you can purchase Griffin’s almost equally generic PodPod iPod holder, which virtually guarantees that your iPod will be held safely in any cup holder in any car. And for a little more, you can have a significantly better holder that will be better positioned for iPod viewing and mounting. By comparison, iGrip is an interesting invention, but not one we’d either use ourselves or recommend seriously to others. Name aside, it was surely invented to hold something other than expensive digital music players, and we wouldn’t feel comfortable trusting ours with it unless we were in an entirely different (flat dashboarded) set of vehicles.
