An extended look at three of the best leather iPad Folios available
We got a call the other day here at MacCase World Headquarters from a customer asking what made our iPad cases so expensive. I explained that we had iPad cases that started at a very reasonable $9.95. Then he mentioned our Premium Leather iPad Folio and asked again what made them so expensive. Seeing that his question was genuine, I took some time to supply an answer.
While the internet opens up a world of possibilities to shop a broad variety of items from the comfort of your home or office, there is no taking the place of picking up an item and holding it your hand. Our leather iPad Folio is a product that you want to hold.
In a recent review of our leather iPad Foilo (and matching iPad Flight Jacket), Shane Rahemtulla of sfrt(re)views stated, "It’s beautiful to behold and if you’re not careful, you may catch yourself or others staring. Think carefully selected beautiful leather hides, all hand-stitched individually around a classic, elegant and functional design."
The first thing Shane mentions is the beauty. Typically, beautiful things are more expensive than, let's say, less attractive things. In the words of Ray Davies, "Art takes time, time is money…". If you're someone who can appreciate the beauty in things, you're used to paying a bit more for them. It's the price you pay for having excellent taste.
Then there is the materials. The hides we use are vegetable dyed (much more expensive and much more environmentally friendly then chemically dyed hides) and only become available when the cows pass. After they are tanned and cut, the panels are assembled, very slowly, by hand, one at a time. And if that was not enough, we use contrasting white thread on the curved panels that highlights our obsessive level of quality in every stitch. You cannot put a white stitch on a brown or black panel unless every stitch is perfect.
Our Premium Leather iPad Folio's defacto piece of engineering is the the frame that holds your iPad. It's the single most complex part we've ever made. It's stamped like a car fender from a single piece of light alloyed steel then folded and welded to exact specifications to make sure the fit of your original iPad, iPad Air or iPad Mini is absolutely perfect with no rattling or misfits. The frame and the entire interior is wrapped in a black ultra suede material and stitched with black thread that is tripled dyed so when you open the iPad Folio all you see is screen.
Our iPad Folios have all the requisite functionality that top line iPad cases should have: Smart cover, auto on/off feature, folding for typing and movie watching, etc. But when speaking to users of our leather iPad Folios, whether from the BBC, MTV, Paramount Pictures or a host of other industry leading companies, the feedback is always the same. They love how the case feels and how it makes them feel.
Words like passion, craftsmanship, commitment to quality are thrown around often. With our Premium Leather iPad Folio, you feel them. You feel those words made real when you hold our Folio in your hands. The hides, the quality of the sewing, the materials chosen, the fit of the iPad, the protection provided all coalesce into something greater than the individual parts.
We could have used cheap, PVC coated (plastic!) hides or bonded leather which is ground up scrap leather mixed with a vinyl substrate. We could have used a cheap plastic for the frame that would flex and warp. We could easily have hid poor quality construction and used a cheap material for the interior. We could have done all these things and cut our costs a great deal. What would be be left with? Basically, something that looks, feels and functions like most of the other iPad cases out there.
So how did the call end with the potential customer? I asked him if he had purchased the cheapest tablet computer he could find or even a cheap tablet computer? He reminded me that the iPad was basically the most expensive tablet computer out there. So do you really want to put the most expensive tablet in a cheap case? He bought our Folio and said he was coming back to order another for his wife once her new iPad Air arrived.
In the end what we wanted for our Premium Leather iPad Folio is the same thing we want for all our Premium Leather models, to be the pinnacle of Apple portable protection.
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