Jamie Thomas for Olloclip

Jamie Thomas for Olloclip, the indispensable, yet disposable lens and adapter kits for smart phones. What do I mean by that? Olloclip allows you to quickly an conveniently expand the native photo and videography capabilities of your iPhone (or Samsung) by clipping a a high quality wide angle, macro, or telephoto lens. The lenses work great, actually, but they aren’t super cheap, and if you invest the $60-$100 in one their packages, you are shit out of luck when you switch to a new phone. That’s right, though your old lenses don’t become obsolete when you get a new phone, the bracket that mounts them onto your phone becomes totally useless, and they do not offer the ability to buy just the bracket. What are you supposed to do with your old one? Well according to a spokesperson you are “free to give them away or sell them on eBay.” So while I can’t argue against the quality of the product (Olloclips are massively useful, especially when photographing/videoing skateboarding, and they are well made), I can not help but be angry about planned obsolescence and unnecessary waste. After all, it’s not as if Apple doesn’t have a history of changing physical dimensions of a product. Buy an Olloclip if you want to increase the diversity and usability of as your smartphone for video and photography, just know that in a year or two when you upgrade your phone, your Olloclip investment (up to 20% of your phone’s purchase price) will be forfeit. Of course, none of this is Jamie Thomas’ fault. Check out the video after the jump. There’s even a cameo (paid or unpaid?) with Steve Caballero.