Easy Fix for Horizontal iPhone Pocket Syndrome

According to a very scientific poll at everythingicafe, 41% of people put their iPhone in their right front pocket and 34% in their left front pocket. (http://www.everythingicafe.com/forum/threads/which-pocket-do-you-put-your-iphone-in.57830/).

I'm a right-front-pocket type but I hate it when my iPhone slips down to the bottom of my pocket and sits horizontally across my leg and it's worse (all bunched up) when I sit down.

I know, it's not the end of the world, but I decided to do something about it.

Step 1: Where the iPhone wants to go

Here's the shape of the front pocket and it is no surprise that the iPhone wants to slide down to the bottom.

Comments

[Javin007]

iPants.

[Knight27]

Cover your rivets with sugru?

[tewharau]

I've done this to most of my jeans now and some shorts as well. So far, the stitching alone has been fine. If you wanted to reinforce it, I'd probably use a bit of fabric before I got out the rivets...

I guess the two rivets on the watch pocket could scratch it when you put it in or take it out. If you were worried, you could do the mod in your left pocket (no watch pocket on that side).

[klaurson]

Awesome, so simple, so smart. The perfect instructable, makes you think: why haven't I thought of that before!?

[p2man]

I might try this, thanks!

[GadgetmanKen]

Great, simple Instructable. I always use my left pocket for my phone because I'm deaf in my right ear. I keep the same stuff in my pocket beside my phone to keep in propped upright. Such as a small pill case, a dental brush and eyeglass cleaning rag. But it still drops occasionally. Sewing a seam down the middle makes the pocket useless for anything else you might want to put in your pocket, even your hand to get something else in your pocket.
Perhaps a pocket in your pocket, or a thin velcro strip sewn, or stuck down the middle would be even better.
What I hate the most is when you are driving and you can't get to it because its in your pocket with your seat belt over that. Perhaps a pocket sewn mid thigh to the side would work even better. Let us know how that goes?

[tewharau]

Good ideas. Have a go & post pics!

You'd be surprised how short a seam is necessary to keep the phone upright. I reckon an inch might do it, which would make the rest of the pocket usable for all but those with severely webbed digits.

[agdollison]

I wonder if Steve Jobs has seen this yet

[Instructerbls]

Only thing I would change is stitching the whole thing. A small stitch at the top and maybe the bottom would stabilize the phone while leaving your pocket open when empty.

[CazzPhoenix]

If so you can be on the lookout for the iPocket.. in fact, I vote for the title of this instructable to be changed to "The iPocket"

P.S. I have a blackberry

[tewharau]

Hey, I didn't realize it until your comment, but in the second photo, i'm actually wearing a Steve Jobs costume!

[MyMenagerie]

This is a fantastic idea! Thanks! I can also make pockets for other things that need to be carried away from all the normal pocket stuff. Thanks again!

[Kaelessin]

This is brilliant! It's one of those things that's so simple and obvious even the shrewdest of us can't think of it :D

I carry quite a lot in my pockets and am rather annoyed when all the articles bunch up at the bottom (quite unsightly and uncomfortable) this should fix the issue nicely!

[tewharau]

Thanks for the comment. I hadn't thought of it, but you could use the other side of the pocket for something else...earphones? sync cable? credit card?

[MyMenagerie]

Money... though I doubt very many of us have any. :(

[Kaelessin]

pocket knife!

[FuzzyBearGeek]

Or even a nice, thin, led flashlight. ;o)

[the_kcar]

I've done similar mods, but to BDU pants. I don't carry a pockebook - I have one-hand-access to anything a purse or bag would normally carry. My cell, though, goes on a belt holster. Still - great 'ible!

[im3733]

I'd better not try this... I'd endup making a little pocket for everything and the result would be a pocket protector built into my jeans...

[whiteoakart]

ooh ooh, Leatherman pouch sewn into pocket coming soon to all my pants. Thanks for the simply awesomely simple idea. I have a nerdy holster for my iPhone. But the leatherman, that thing drives me crazy.

[KD5NRH]

I did this with a cargo pocket to keep my flashlight vertical. What I keep meaning to do is make some sort of stiff insert fitted to the pocket with pouches sized for the flashlight, spare pistol mag, and digital recorder so I can move it all from one pair of cargo pants to another.

[Twopercent]

Omagawd, just did this. Thanks for turning my left hip-pocket into a usable pocket again instead of a phone-only pocket :D

[tewharau]

Photos?

[BtheBike]

Congressman Weiner could have used this 1. =)

[tewharau]

How exactly?

[BtheBike]

a simple downward stitch to hogtie (pun intent 100% :) the hog down maybe .

[dokcal]

Brilliant! I think you might want to bar-tack the top end of the vertical stitching, though, just for strength. I'd imagine that will get a lot of wear and tear.

Might even be worth sticking a rivet there!

[anniekate76]

Oooh, no, a rivet could scratch the phone.

[dokcal]

Well... maybe, eventually.

Both ends of the rivet would be on the outside of the fabric, and the phone would be on the inside. The only way it would scratch the phone would be if the edge of the rivet wore through the fabric... which, granted, it might do after prolonged use.

Eh, probably not worth the risk, though. I formally retract the notion of a rivet! ;>)

[jmartin8]

Wouldn't it be simpler to sew a line from the bottom of the pocket up to the watch pocket and then use a seam ripper to remove the stitches from the bottom of the watch pocket, thereby creating an otherwise mostly unused piece of you britches into something useful?

[swmech]

Watch pockets are for challenge coins that you don't want to get scratched up by putting 'em in with your other change. This 'ible is one that I've done before as well, but I usually also make a horizontal stitch because I *really* hate pockets that go all the way down to mid-thigh.

Brava, thank you. :)

[ToolboxGuy]

Be easier to just buy a belt loop case and be done with the problem, but instructables are for FUN first. Bye bye watch pocket, hello Multimedia Device Holster! Of course, the watch pocket is a good size to keep your earbuds in!

Warning! Levi Strauss may steal your design!

[tewharau]

Thanks for the comment. I did something very similar to that on a pair of Carhartt dungarees & wrote a new instructable yesterday!

[jmartin8]

You are still going to have to sew across the bottom of the pocket and then up as if the phone gets below where you have opened the watch pocket, you may not be able to get it back out without taking your britches off, haha.

[yztay]

you can call it a ipocket but steve jobs probably sue you ;-)

[sypher]

Just don't use an iPhone?

[tewharau]

I'm pretty sure it would work with an Android phone too.

[the_prototype]

I have an "Android phone" with very similar dimensions and it never happens to me.

[FuzzyBearGeek]

I can't believe you would say something like that. This instructable, like all of them, is for people that could use this information. Not for people that don't need it to continually comment on how they don't need it.

Very cool instructable. Nicely done.

[tewharau]

It never happens to my daughter either, but she wears stretch skinny jeans. She thought it was a stupid idea. Probably not as stupid as me wearing tight skinny jeans, though.