3 ms·

A huge ecosystem of third party accessories, cases, skins, etc. The openness is easily worth it.

MBCook 19d ago
That’s obviously the people who are really using it, but I assumed you had to pay Apple to get it. So either you made your own measurements or if you were doing Made For iPhone and they would give it to you as part of that program which surely you must have to pay for.
- p0ckets 19d ago
  Commoditize Your Complement - Apple wants accessories to be cheap. You might want to pay for the Made For iPhone certification for some things, but I doubt most cases have it.
- gertlex 19d ago
  I assume there's NDAs in place with some vendors pre-release, since my understanding is some accessory vendors get the needed info before new models are released, so they can spin up their lines and have accessories ready to go when the new model hits the market. (but I could be wrong; NDAs w/China? no idea what the time between announced/released/shipped is typically; I last bought Apple product in 2009...)
  - tonyedgecombe 19d ago
    I've heard that they are busy bribing people in Apple's manufacturers for dimensions before products are released.
eloisius 19d ago
I always imagined shops in China got out the calipers and made measurements from scratch every time a new iPhone was released. Never knew Apple made it this easy to manufacture Minion iPhone cases
- SoftTalker 19d ago
  Commoditize your complements. Wide choice and availability of accessories benefits hardware sales.
- userbinator 19d ago
  They probably still do, if they have the device, because you definitely want to make sure before creating the not-cheap-even-in-China tooling. As others have mentioned, these are more useful for when they don't, i.e. before the actual release.
- Maxion 19d ago
  The big manufactureres pay or just simple acquire the leaks.
  - yreg 19d ago
    I remember around iPhone 6 or such popular design rumours that were circulating around turned out to be wrong. There were photos of chinese warehouses filled with cases made for the incorrect design. With iPhone 4 Gizmodo literally acquired the prototype and still large portion of the crowd did not believe them, because the design seemed radically different to what they expected. Nowadays with the size of the supply line there seem to remain no more hardware secrets before the keynotes.

That’s obviously the people who are really using it, but I assumed you had to pay Apple to get it. So either you made your own measurements or if you were doing Made For iPhone and they would give it to you as part of that program which surely you must have to pay for.

p0ckets 19d ago
Commoditize Your Complement - Apple wants accessories to be cheap. You might want to pay for the Made For iPhone certification for some things, but I doubt most cases have it.
gertlex 19d ago
I assume there's NDAs in place with some vendors pre-release, since my understanding is some accessory vendors get the needed info before new models are released, so they can spin up their lines and have accessories ready to go when the new model hits the market. (but I could be wrong; NDAs w/China? no idea what the time between announced/released/shipped is typically; I last bought Apple product in 2009...)
- tonyedgecombe 19d ago
  I've heard that they are busy bribing people in Apple's manufacturers for dimensions before products are released.

eloisius 19d ago

I always imagined shops in China got out the calipers and made measurements from scratch every time a new iPhone was released. Never knew Apple made it this easy to manufacture Minion iPhone cases

SoftTalker 19d ago
Commoditize your complements. Wide choice and availability of accessories benefits hardware sales.
userbinator 19d ago
They probably still do, if they have the device, because you definitely want to make sure before creating the not-cheap-even-in-China tooling. As others have mentioned, these are more useful for when they don't, i.e. before the actual release.
Maxion 19d ago
The big manufactureres pay or just simple acquire the leaks.
- yreg 19d ago
  I remember around iPhone 6 or such popular design rumours that were circulating around turned out to be wrong. There were photos of chinese warehouses filled with cases made for the incorrect design. With iPhone 4 Gizmodo literally acquired the prototype and still large portion of the crowd did not believe them, because the design seemed radically different to what they expected. Nowadays with the size of the supply line there seem to remain no more hardware secrets before the keynotes.