A Very MacGeek Christmas, Part 1: Griffin Tech on Twitter
During the time leading up to the holiday season, many of us make travel plans to go see family. This year was no different for me, and as this was our first Christmas since moving to Lincoln, I knew the trip home would be a long one, especially with a 5-month old baby.
I started looking for ways to charge and support my iPhone or my wife’s iPod classic while in the car. For years, I had been using a cupholder cradle made by Belkin. The problem with the Belkin cradle is that it was made for a third-generation iPod, and it holds the device in place with a suction cup. That suction cup works great for the iPod classic, but not so much for my iPhone’s curved and contoured back.
Along with the Belkin cradle, I’ve been using a Griffin Technology PowerJolt to charge the iPod/iPhone. Now, together, this isn’t an entirely bad setup. But that cradle sits in a cupholder, bringing the available number of cupholders from 2 to 1. When I made a lot of trips by myself, this wasn’t a problem. But imagine a 7-10 hour trip (depending on baby) with only one cupholder for two people. Seriously, imagine it. Yeah. Those cupholders are pretty important, aren’t they?
So I set out to find an alternative solution. Now, I’ve always loved Griffin Technology and their products. They make top quality accessories. They actually give a crap about design, too, which is great for a company that primarily makes accessories to Apple products.
Griffin makes a nice car solution called TuneFlex AUX. It plugs into the 12V power port in your vehicle, and then supports an iPod dock atop a bendable gooseneck cable. You plug in an iPod, run a auxiliary cable or a tape deck converter from the TuneFlex to your car stereo, and you’re done! Cupholder freedom!
There’s only one problem.
The TuneFlex AUX is not shielded from the iPhone’s GSM signal. So it will constantly make that doot-doo-do-doot buzz. Dang it.
“Well, surely,” I think to myself, “Griffin must be making a TuneFlex for iPhone. That just makes sense.”
So I turn to Twitter. See, I follow @griffintech on Twitter, and I’m very glad that I do. So I shot off a message to Dave, the Griffin Twitter Guru, asking if TuneFlex AUX would be iPhone compatible anytime soon.
The answer came back fairly quickly, especially taking into consideration how many tweets this guy must receive. In mid-November, I was told, “It should be out next month.”
Needless to say, I was quite happy. I like it when companies actually communicate with their customers. I decided to keep in touch with Dave from Griffin Tech, and we’ve bantered back a few tweets here and there. He’s a pretty nice guy.
When it got to be mid-December though, and the iPhone-compatible TuneFlex was nowhere to be seen (nor purchased), I turned to Dave again. I was promptly informed that they were still shooting for December, but it wasn’t looking good for me to receive it prior to my big trip (which Dave knew was coming up from our chatter on Twitter). He asked me to email him my mailing address.
Huh? That was interesting and unexpected. So I shot off my address, and lo and behold, a week later, a package arrives at my door from Griffin Technology.
Inside the package was a Griffin iSqueez. I had seen the iSqueez before in stores, but not recently. It’s a $10 cupholder cradle that is a one-size-fits-all couch for any iPod or iPhone. It even allows generous room for a Griffin PowerJolt charger (which I already have). Sadly, it is also a discontinued product.
However, the iSqueez is a superior fit for my iPhone over my old Belkin cradle. So I welcomed this cute black cradle with open arms. So yes, I didn’t reclaim my cupholder this trip, but I was shown the power of communication between a customer and a corporation.
You see, even though I didn’t get exactly what I wanted when I wanted it, Griffin went out of their way to make things as right as possible. That is a rare trait. I still plan to buy the iPhone-compatible TuneFlex as soon as it is released. The iSqueez will likely be relegated to my wife’s car.
But Griffin can be rest-assured that I will always come to them first for my iPhone and iPod (and even Mac) needs for the future.
