“ What ’s with that Apple battery pack ? ”
If you ’re the occupier Apple be intimate - it - all in your family / office / shoal , you probably heard this question more than once this week . It ’s an appropriate one to ask when the large company in the world dropped one of its strangest releases : a battery slip with a uncanny hump that promises to extend the life of your iPhone 6 or six by 25 hour . I wo n’t say it ’s awkward , but had it been loose by a company like Griffin or even Mophie , it would have a hard time finding someone to sit around with in the cafeteria .
But since it ’s Apple , the whole man noticed . The timing of the passing was curious in itself — on a random Tuesday , just 17 days before Christmas — but even if it had been unveiled alongside the iPhone sise in September , it would have been no less of an quirkiness . It might be the most un - Apple mathematical product ever free , and I have to wonder if Jony I ve even saw it before it was post to production .
And each metre I was pose the above doubtfulness , I scramble to answer it .
Worst case scenario
When the first image of Apple ’s battery subject popped up in my Twitter timeline , I scrolled right past it . It was n’t until I understand the same image up three or four more times in near succession when I realized it was n’t someone ’s caper mockup .
Now Apple has n’t exactly had a stellar record when it come to cases . There were thefunky iPhone 5c coversthat showed unsightly bits of words through the hole . TheiPhone 4 bumpersthat weremore about reception than protection . And who can forget the perfectly bizarreiPod sock ? But something troubled me about the shelling case even more than the design . It ’s not just that it ’s ill-chosen and goofy ; rather , it seems to be trying to address a specific customer complaint with the iPhone 6 .
Of of course , you’re able to indicate that the iPhone 6 itself is an answer to specific charge about the size of the concealment compared to its Android foes , but the battery case feel different . When Apple design the iPhone 6 , it was a lifelike patterned advance and design evolution . Every determination — the size of the battery , the protrusion of the camera , the placement of the big businessman button — was made to create the good ware , wart and all .
The barrage causa does n’t look like it went through the same process . It ’s as if Tim Cook or Phil Schiller understand a bunch of disparaging iPhone post and call off a coming together . And that ’s not how Apple go .
Losing focus
There ’s no means to know whether Steve Jobs would have signed off on Apple ’s first battery eccentric , but we do bonk that he disdain knee - jerk products : “ It ’s really concentrated to design production by focus groups . A bunch of meter , mass do n’t eff what they desire until you show it to them . ”
But if there was ever a stress grouping mathematical product , it ’s this one . While there ’s still some nerveless design inside that make it smarter than the intermediate electric battery case — the Lightning connexion is a dainty addition and the alive condition updates are particularly cunning — without the Apple symbolisation on the back it would never be mistaken for a Cupertino product . And at a hundred bucks , I ca n’t imagine it ’s work to fly off shelves .
The iPhone battery case is a solution to a problem , but I just do n’t think it ’s one Apple powerfully believe want solving . multitude have been comparing it to the Magic Mouse ’s charging port or the Apple Pencil ’s built - in Lightning charger , but those are design compromises made for trend and gizmo . The Apple Pencil might attend mirthful sticking out the end of the iPad Pro , but the charge and particular put into its design is obvious . With the barrage case , not so much .
Cause and effect
Apple does n’t necessitate to create reactionary products . It has an army of third - party cooperator that are happy to fill specific pauperization that arise as people discover thing that Apple opt to overlook . Some smarting away , the iPhone battery case does n’t really offer much that the Mophie Juice Pack does n’t , and it ’s hard to empathise its ground for existing , other than the episodic upsell to an unscrupulous iPhone 6 or 6s buyer at an Apple Store .
Of of course , this could all just be an overreaction . A $ 99 accessary is basically a rounding error error on Apple ’s bottom line , and after a few weeks it ’ll just fuse into the others on the shelf at the Apple Store . By the meter the iPhone 7 come around we ’ll belike forget it ever existed .
It ’s no secret that Apple does its best workplace when it ’s consecrate its customer product they want , not what they want in a ware , and I go for this is n’t a sign of a shifting philosophy . The Apple I love builds product on its own full term with little gaze for popular opinion . It does n’t reply to screaky wheels with a generous software of grunge .
