We weren’t quite sure to expect for this year’s major European Mac show. In the weeks leading up to the event, whenever we spoke to someone in the industry, the response to the question “so, will we see you in Paris?” was usually along the lines of “nah, not bothering this year”.

Despite this, however, there was lots to see at the show. Best of all, though, was this stand for the iPhone:

Stick with us, we know it sounds dull; actually, it ‘sounds’ great. Drop your iPhone onto the clear plastic block with some audio playing through the iPhone’s built-in speaker, and a gramophone-style horn built into the plastic base amplifies the sound completely passively. There’s no power or extra speakers involved, and even on the noisy show floor you could hear a tremendous difference in volume between having the iPhone out of the stand, and dropping it in. It’s a lovely technical trick, and had us endlessly amused. That you can thread in a cable and have your iPhone charging at the same time is just the icing on the cake.

You can read our full show report here.