Hasta La Gadget!

Of course, a retractable wire restraint won’t actually help the iPhone play any nicer with AT&T’s beleaguered network, but it will stop the screen of your iPhone (or any other phone, despite the name) from ending up like a crystalline spiderweb after hitting the floor.

The extremely dorky process goes like this: You stick an adhesive pad onto the back of the phone, which adds a plastic loop. This loop then connects to the painful-sounding “split ring connector” and that in turn hooks onto a 30-inch steel cable.

The cable retracts into the belt-clip, just like a metal tape measure swishing back into its case, and the clip is held on by a locking carabiner. If there is a nerdier accessory in all the world I want to see it.

The leash will not only keep you phone from fatal impacts; it will also stop you from dropping it in water (something that Wired Science editor Betsy Mason might find useful to stop her dumping yet another iPhone in the toilet) and helps to prevent theft. Or not: a cable running into your pocket means one thing to a thief, and that’s that you have something valuable in there.

It gets a whole lot less ridiculous if you use this to secure your phone whilst inside a bag, but for those who insist on wearing their dorkiness on their belts, an optional extra can make you look even sillier. The Designer Label puts “a crystal clear polyurethane dome” over the design or photo of your choice, mimicking those old-fashioned key-fobs.

The iPhone Leash will cost $25 in money. In cost to your street-cred, its price cannot be overestimated.

iPhone Leash [My Phone Leash. Thanks, Daniel!]