I was,, irked today.  Here is the image that did it.

Now I’m not mad because someone put together the thought that,, “If I put weights on and play with the Wii I’ll get a better workout.”  Nor was I angry at the fact that they bothered to get their branding correct, (though I’m sure at no point they contacted Nintendo or any of it’s business partners).

This “friend” or “acquaintance”  of the inventor has noted that you can email him, and he’ll put you in touch with the inventor.  Also he notes that the eyelet on the weight is for looping the Wii controller to.

That’s great, umm, those eyelets have been on that particular style of weight pack for nigh on 40 years now.  So the “innovations” shown are,, painting it white,, and putting the Wii logo on it.  Now if you just want to sell something, that’s fine with me.  However, when you make a point to indicate that you indeed are an “inventor,” that is where my irking begins.

It is frustrating to me as it likely is to all other designers I’m sure, that people with incomplete ideas can pass themselves off as great thinkers.  

The people that came up with the iPod, great thinkers, they developed a clever simple solution that solved a problem in a novel manner of interface, and integrated a great business solution with it iTunes (by the way, iTunes is THE reason that the iPods are so great).

Now this person could call themselves a merchandiser, a branding associate, or maybe even a marketing person, but inventor.  There isn’t a single operational change made in the construction of this old reliable product. Adding the color white to a product doesn’t appropriately freshen it for me.

Oh yeah, and that fancy grommet,, it’s there so you can hang them on a hook.  Has been for years.

Why not simply round off the corners, pad the inside with something that won’t keep the sweat in, and make a beefed up cable to go with it.  Then you’d have something you kind of invented that would integrate a beefier cable to hold the Wii controller, and look like it was made just for the Wii.

Here’s the link thanks Alchemi

I feel bad, kinda ripping this, while I actually was pretty impressed with the blog that showed it.  Some good stuff there.

Well thats all for now, I’m going to go invent folding my pillow in half and falling asleep on my left side with my right knee half bent.  I’ll see if I can patent it while I’m at it.