A problem:

If you have a teenager, you will no doubt be familiar with the dilemma of letting them listen to music at night while keeping them somewhat sheltered from the irresistible pull of the bright rectangle of light that seem to so efficiently hijack their attention. In my day, it was simple: the tape deck played music and that’s all it did. These days, with smart phones, it feels like it’s all or nothing. The tape deck comes with a movie theater, a video game arcade, and a place to hang out with friends, and they’re all open and available 24 hours a day. So, like any concerned parent, we take the phone away at night but since now days, it’s the place they get their music, it means they can’t listen to music anymore which is kind of sad.

Something annoying:

You know what I hate? The fact that our consumer culture dictates that when something is broken, we throw it away and buy something new rather than fixing it. I had a smartphone and after two years, the internal phone speaker broke, which meant I had to have it on speaker or plugged into an earpiece to hear people talking to me. I actually attempted to fix the problem: I ordered the part on ebay and spend 30 minutes opening the phone but I failed. Mind you, the smartphone was still a computer with over 1000 times the speed and memory of my first computer, a nice bright and sharp touch screen, wifi, etc… Other than the speaker problem, it worked perfectly. In the end, though, since I couldn’t fix the problem, I reluctantly gave in and bought a new phone. Grrrrr!

Ready for the trash? Not so fast!

So, I made this:

It’s actually really simple. I tried to restrict the functionality of the phone and create an object designed with the single purpose of enjoying spotify without the potential distraction of the rest of the internet getting in the way. First off, with the zip card out, your smartphone becomes a small tablet.

I removed all the video games and Netflix and Youtubes and Hulus and Snapchats and Facebooks and Vines and Instagrams and circles and Pinterests and Ellos and MySpace. I kept only Spotify and installed a program called Autostart which automatically launches an app after the phone boots and prevents a user from quitting the app.

I then built a frame into which I could mount the phone and poured a trademark Hollier polished cement base. I used autostart to automatically launch Spotify to whenever the phone turns on and thus transformed a crappy old orphaned phone into a custom one-of-a-kind Spotify appliance. Being mounted in a frame and set into a solid base transforms it into something you set and walk away like a radio rather than something you interact and fiddle with like a phone.