Light, cheap and comes with a remote.

Amazon has these tripod mounts for iPhones under various names. I chose the cheapest, the Jansite, for all of $8.95. You can pay many times this sum if you like, which will make hipsters happy, but this does the job well for very little. The iPhone does not have to be removed from its protective case, and the tripod thread is the standard 1/4″ used on tripods since Henry Fox-Talbot was a boy.

There’s no need to remove the protective case.

The rear knob permits changes from landscape to portrait orientation.

I mate mine with an inexpensive, light Oben carbon fiber tripod which comes with a handy QR plate which is bolted to the Jansite tripod mount, and despite its light weight extends to some five and one half feet. The days of massive, heavy cantilevered Linhof monster tripods are over, and mine goes on sale as soon as I finish writing this. You do not need Brooklyn Bridge construction when your camera is almost weightless and comes with state-of-the-art image stabilization.

But wait! There’s more!

There’s a tiny button on the side of the remote for power. A blue LED confirms power-on.

The Jansite, for the crazy $8.95 outlay, comes with a bluetooth remote. This pairs with your iPhone in seconds (Settings->Bluetooth) and I gave up testing its range at 36 feet. So now you have the perfect night vision (Night Mode!) setup.

As for cases, hipsters will once again rejoice knowing their precious iPhone can be ensconced in $100 cases made from hides from select Schwabian bulls, but the $16 Lameeku provides all you need – decent protection for the triple lens assembly, a grippable leather exterior far superior to the slithery native surface of the iPhone and, best of all, room for the rest of your life in the slide out holder.

Your life in your pocket.

In my case that means a Driver’s License, a medical insurance card, an ATM card and a credit card. All you need. Were Apple Pay ubiquitous I would do without the credit card. And just like the hipster $100 special, this will last 2 years (as have my last three) before you need to upgrade it, not because it’s worn but rather because Apple has come up with some startling innovation in its latest iPhone and, naturally, that will not fit the old case.