by There are suckers born every minute, and the newly announced Guitar Sidekick is a device divined for a sucker purchase. For only $30.00USD, you too, can have this wildly unnecessary and ridiculous accessory for your guitar:
We love guitars, but we cannot for the life of us understand the real world need for this useless device — which is only slightly less annoying than the Eric Clapton Fake Wood Fender Phone.
I can’t imagine any serious amateur or professional musician actually using this in rehearsal or on stage. Mobile phones are heavy and having that whole thing clinging to your headstock is unseemly.
Sure, you can use your mobile phone as a metronome or as a recording device — but why would you want to have that convenience for the cost of having it attached to your guitar? A music stand works much better and it doesn’t move.
That’s the problem with the Guitar Sidekick. When you play guitar, the entire guitar is in motion, so trying to read a mobile phone screen while it is moving and stuck to your headstock is nigh impossible. You wouldn’t be able to follow along with a guitar tab or a lyric sheet — two of the topmost “reasons” for buying the device.
We’ve seen a lot of internet coverage of this device — not by music sites, but iPhone technology blogs — and we are concerned that the “anything iPhone wave” is what’s selling the coverage of this device and not its missing merits.
Anyone who actually plays a guitar would instantly recognize this sidekick thingy as a kick in the wallet and not a time or energy saver — and that’s why it is important that real life form the context of reviews and press coverage — instead of just loosing out an unabashed wondering at the mere existence of something that is really nothing.
That has to be the dorkiest, most awkward looking uck-cessory I have ever seen! Anything iPhone sells, I suppose. Any musician would be laughed off stage with that.
It’s getting so much coverage in the iPhone press, Gordon, and I think that’s wrong. Nobody is giving the product any real life use context — because the thing is basically unusable in any genuine way — and so why promote it? If wonder if your iPhone slips out of the thing during a particularly rough shredding session if the company would pay for the damage of a cracked screen?
There are guitar tuners that clip to your headstock — they sense the vibration of the guitar and allow you to tune up quickly — they’re great for acoustic guitars, but you never leave them clipped on. The genius in those devices is in the ingenuity, execution and then the subsequent hiding of the product from view after use.