A Playful iPhone Speaker, Shaped Like A Ball

Ballo plugs right into your smartphone for on-the-go tunes at high volume. Headphones will do the trick when you’re streaming tunes for your ears only, but some tracks are just too good not to share. Ballo is a playful new design by the studio Bernhard | Burkard for OYO that looks like a mini-karaoke mic but functions like a quality speaker. “For us the important point is the sphere as the shape of the device,” Thomas Burkard tells Co.Design. “A ball--let’s say a baseball--lays around most of the time in a nonspecific place: maybe on the floor or on a desk. Someone picks it up, holds it in his hand, puts it back.” Unencumbered by staid right angles, Ballo can be handled in a way that totally works with the comfortable, casual way we’ve come to fondle our phones, and there’s no need for a stand, or a formal, flat locale to set it up. J...