The price: $US50

The price, again: $US50 (seriously?)

The verdict: My eyes are now all screwed up. Seriously.

The Wazabee 3DeeShell is essentially an iPhone case built around one key feature: a 3D screen filter. Obviously it can’t turn the OS into a 3D experience, but the Shell promises to offer glasses-less 3D in the form of stereoscopic images you can take on your iPhone (with the purchase of their $US1 3DeeCamera software).

I don’t know where to start with the shortcomings of this product. It’s a train wreck of moulded plastic, a product so horridly useless, even amongst novelty gadgets, that it should be banned from sale in the free market.

There’s the issue of the design. Once you slide the 3D filter onto your screen, you can no longer navigate the iPhone. Therefore, while using their software (that’s not free with my $US50, otherwise completely useless purchase?) you need to continually move the filter up to hit a button, and then down again to see the results.

You can capture “3D” photos by taking two slightly different pictures of an object and combining them in that $US1 software I mentioned above. I was unable to do so without crashing the program (though to be fair, this might be my firmware 3.0 getting in the way). However, I was able to 3D-ize an existing photo.

The result is not quite as good as any bad hologram I’ve ever seen, mostly creating the illusion that the photo was ever so slightly sunken in my display. It’s a tad better than 2D in terms of depth, but the results are quite blurry, and the extent to which it fucks with your eyesight is not worth the 2 minutes of near-entertainment.

(In case you believe my 3D-izing skills to be lacking, I also tried out their free space shooter title. I don’t know what to say about it other than the game’s fun level is on par with creating Excel spread sheets and it in no way appears 3D.)

45 minutes after testing, I still can’t focus properly with my left eye. I’m not sure what a few rusty nails go for these days, but it’s gotta be less than 50 bones.

There’s simply nothing worthwhile about the Wazabee 3DeeShell that can justify either its existence or its please-punch-me-in-the-face cutesy name. Given the laughable price and (temporary??) damage to my vision, I don’t believe that I can recommend the purchase, nor can I recommend any programmer create content for the “platform” when its SDK hits later this month.

Also of note, in some unnecessarily cruel twist of fate, I can’t get this shell off my phone. Thanks Wazabee. You guys are the best. [Wazabee]

At a later time, I was able to remove the shell from my phone

Following several years of therapy, the doctors believe I will see again

Product birthed by Satan himself

The 3DeeShell wraps around the iPhone like a protective case, and it features a clear “3D” lens that’s removable when not in use. And while the case can’t magically convert 2D content to 3D, the company is offering three standalone apps to create and view media for the display: 3DeeVUsion, 3Dee!oadr and 3DeeCamera.

• For iPod Touch users, 3DeeVUsion makes it possible to view three-dimensional content and create their own content as well by taking advantage of the device’s simple touchpad operation.
• With the 3Dee!oadr Web application, users have access to a stock of more than 500,000 3D images thanks to a connection to Yahoo Flickr! image services. The software also enables users to upload their own 3D images and share them with friends.
• With the 3DeeCamera, users can generate stereoscopic pictures in a matter of seconds using mobile software and a native iPhone camera. Various viewing modes mean that the pictures can be viewed with or without 3D glasses.

We’re guessing that the 3DeeShell doesn’t have the widest viewing surface, and you probably won’t want to stare at the images all day long. But it’s 3D. It’s neat!

Wazabee will also be releaing a similar product for 13.3-inch laptops along with a standalone 19-inch 3D gaming monitor at Macworld. [SpatialView via Pocket Lint]