Premium Leather iPad Pro 9.7 Folio Case Preview

With our Premium Leather iPad Pro cases for the 12.9 arriving and shipping, we turn our attention to the 12.9's baby brother, our Premium Leather iPad Pro 9.7 Folio case. Our Folios for the iPad Pro, Air and Mini are some of our most popular models. Since the announcement of the 9.7, we have received many calls and emails asking when we would have the 9.7 Folio cases ready. Well, we are almost there.

MacCase has been making Folios for the iPad since Apple has been making tablets. Like the iPhone for Apple, MacCase's leather iPad Folio is the product by which many people become aware of our brand.  Our Folios have created many MacCase customers.

Let's face it, there are a lot of iPad cases available. Fortunately (or unfortunately) the vast majority of them are landfill waiting to happen. They are poorly designed, poor engineered and poorly manufactured to last a very limited amount of time before ultimately breaking and tossed away.

I can tell you right now that the Premium Leather iPad Pro 9.7 Folio case is about as far way from those cases as you can get. With many of these cheap, craptastic cases starting around $10 you going to need to be pretty special if your MSRP is $149.95.

Our new 9.7 Folio case is pretty special.

So what makes this leather iPad Pro 9.7 Folio case so special? Let's start with the heart of the case, the frame. The frame is where the tablet interacts with the case and where you interact with the tablet. It is the single most important part of the entire design.

Before any hides are picked or anything is sewn together, a great deal of time, money and energy is spent on developing the frame. In the case of the 9.7 model, a brand new frame was designed, engineered, built and tested. It worked flawlessly and was then discarded. Yup.

Why?

A few customers who purchased the 12.9 Folio called and wrote in to tell us that they could not access the Control and Notification centers when the iPad was in horizontal or landscape mode. We tested it and it was true. In order to access these controls you need to be able to touch an area in the black bezel just off the actual screen. When in the horizontal position, our frame blocked this area.

This realization was made just as the new tooling for the new frame for the 9.7 was being completed. So, while it did work perfectly, it was immediately scraped for a new design which allowed the access to these areas in the bezel. Was it expensive to have to go back and remake all the tooling to make the frame? You bet it was. Was it going to delay the production of the new leather iPad Pro 9.7 Folio case.

Yes.

Are these the types of things you do when you are trying to build the world's best iPad case?

Absolutely.

If the frame is not designed, engineered and built perfectly, it doesn't matter how soft the hides are or how well they are sewn together. The frame is stamped from a single sheet of alloyed steel. It's then folded and welded to a very tight specification to insure it not only holds Apple's newest tablet in place but that you have access to all the ports and controls. Even if only a small percentage want access to all the ports and controls.

We know our designs cannot be everything to everyone, but that does not mean you ignore something that can be improved through a little more work and cost. The frame has to be strong. If you've ever purchased a snap in plastic case for an iPad, you've learned that after a short time the corners develop cracks and eventually break off offering no protection for the most vulnerable areas. In essence, you've wasted your money.

Having this new lightweight, yet amazing strong, stamped steel frame securing your iPad vs. a cheap plastic frame is the difference between driving a Bentley to get somewhere vs. donning a pair of cheap, ill fitting plastic roller skates. At MacCase, we always remember, you bought the world's most expensive tablet computer. We design our cases accordingly.

The new frame is complimented by our integrated Apple Pencil pocket. Customers who have searched the internet for the best pencil storage solution have told us that the MacCase solution is the best from any manufacturer at any price. The 9.7 case overall is smaller than it's 12.9 big brother, but the Pencil pocket is the same size on both cases. Therefore, the Pencil pocket takes on a much more prominent visual role with the leather iPad Pro 9.7 Folio case.

Materials and colors will be the same for the 9.7 as the other Folios in the Premium Leather Collection. Our authentic, distressed Vintage hides, as beautiful as ever, will make up the majority of the first production run. The Vintage is complimented by our pebble grain, satin Black for customers who prefer a more classic looking case.

One note about the new design. The 9.7 iPad Pro and the current iPad Air are the same form factor. This means the overall size and shape of the two tablets are the same. Given this, we will use one design for both tablets. The Folio will accommodate the details of both tablets. iPad Air owners looking for the best in a folio style case will benefit from all the innovation and improvements made for the 9.7 as one design ail work for both model.

The iPad Pro 9.7 Folio case will be our best ever. We cannot wait for these to be inbound. Once they are, we will send out an update to let everyone know. We will begin taking orders at this time. Thank you to everyone who has expressed interest in our newest design.

"So what makes this leather iPad Pro 9.7 Folio case so special? Let's start with the heart of the case, the frame."

Leather iPad Pro Briefcase - Behind the Design

The latest in a series of interviews about the story behind the design of MacCase products.
For this interview, we are again speaking to MacCase President and Chief Creative Officer Michael Santoro about the company's new Premium Leather iPad Pro Briefcase.



JKD: This design is a new form factor for MacCase. Why a horizontal briefcase after all this time?
MS: I think your question is eluding to the fact that all of the cases in the Premium Leather Collection are vertically oriented and this one is not, correct?

JKD: Yes, you've made a point of not doing a traditional horizontal briefcase, and now you have. I am curious as to why?

MS: One thing that is important to remember is that MacCase started as a company that was launched on a single briefcase design. Briefcases are where we come from.

Our original case for the original iBook was radical. It was radical when it was new and to see one today, it still looks radical. The joyfulness of the design is still present. It still makes people smile. One of the radical things about it was, that while it was somewhat horizontally oriented, it was not traditional in any way. There were not any rules to break because the market didn't exist. So the first rule of this new Apple specific case market that we created was that there was not going to be any template to follow.

Quality rules. Innovation rules. Being better than what had come before rules. These were the principals then and these are still the principals that guide us today. When I sat down to design the leather iPad Pro Briefcase, I knew that we would have a Flight Jacket model for the 12.9. There was a template in place. Customers would be expecting it. I wanted something unexpected.

The Flight Jacket is a vertically oriented design that has been around since what, 2008? We have been responsible for making vertically oriented designs somewhat mainstream. They are still the minority vs. the more traditional horizontal cases, but you sure see a lot more of them now than you did back in 2008. In 2008 is was radical. Now it's just different.

When I was working on the new iPad Pro models, I did the Flight Jacket design in under an hour. I thought there was something wrong with that. The original MacCase was a radical design responding to a radical Apple laptop. I wanted at least one of our new leather iPad Pro cases to be a radical design responding to a radical iPad.

JKD: Yes but how is a horizontal design radical?

MS: When you've been zigging for almost 10 years as we have been doing with our vertically oriented designs, sometime it's radical to zag. Especially if the rest of the world has been zigging behind you. Doing a horizontal leather iPad Pro Briefcase was not something anyone expected. For us, it was a radical departure. We could have just did another 12.9 Flight Jacket and have been done with it. But you know me, I'm not really satisfied with just doing what's expected.

JKD: Now that you have been taken orders for both the 12.9 Flight Jacket and leather iPad Pro Briefcase, how has the market responded? Is there a clear sales winner?

MS: We are not a purely sales driven company. What I mean by that is that there have been plenty of MacCase models that I have brought to market that were never sales hits but I just wanted to put them into the world, to see them made real. Sometimes they found an audience and sometimes they didn't. In this particular instance, the horizontal leather iPad Pro Briefcase has outsold the 12.9 Flight Jacket by quite a large margin. Customers like the design.

JKD: Do you think because it's more familiar?

MS: Maybe. I try not to drill down too deeply on any one reason. Again, if you look at it in the context of our Premium Leather Collection, it stands out. It looks different, it looks, dare I say, radical. While people may come to MacCase for the first time looking for a case, and they see this horizontal case, to them it might look familiar. Maybe they gravitate towards it. I see a radical design within the context of our line.

I would like to think people are buying it because it truly embodies all the designs tenants of the MacCase leather collection: Timeless proportions, the highest quality hides, handmade craftsmanship. The leather iPad Pro Briefcase case was not designed it an hour. It took a long time to get all the proportions correct, all the details just right. Don't forget, is all has to function at a really high level as well.

JDK: Can you talk about the functionality? Is there something that sets the leather iPad Pro Briefcase part?

MS: The first thing anyone coming from the horizontally oriented briefcase world will notice other than the good looks, (laughing) is that it's incredibly thin. Yes, it might be horizontal in nature but it's sure not your father's briefcase.

Most traditional briefcases are horridly thick and bulky. Cumbersome. Inelegant. Yes I know people like to put things in them, but come on, it's 2016. Wasn't one of the promise of the digital revolution that everything would get smaller and more miniaturized? That we would be carrying less papers and paperwork? So why do you need a big, bulky case anymore? Our case is less than an inch thick even with stuff in it.

The next aspect of how it functions is specific to the iPad Pro and the Apple Pencil. Like we have discussed before, so many of the cases designed for the iPad Pro are just bigger versions of older iPad cases with an elastic loop sewn to the side in an attempt to hold the $100 Apple Pencil. Good luck with that.

This leather iPad Pro Briefcase centers the entire exterior and under flap design around safely storing and transporting the Apple Pencil. I have yet to see another company have a line wide solution as good as ours. The customers who are purchasing our iPad Pro cases are the ones who are spending weeks doing this research, looking at what is out there. They are coming to MacCase and saying they have looked all over and our solution for the Apple Pencil is the best available.

JKD: You can see the center stripe theme in all the iPad Pro models.

MS: Yes, and this center stripe becomes the actual pocket for the Pencil when the stripe disappears under the flap of 3 of the 4 of our Pro models. This is design content. This is how to protect the Pencil in an integrated and holistic way, designed from the ground up to be part of the solution. Not added on in some last minute feeble attempt to provide a place to stick the Pencil. I think substandard solutions like the customers are reporting to me are really insulting to them. This is another reason why our iPad Pro models are selling so well. Our designs honor the customers intelligence.

JKD: So you have addressed the Pencil but are there other details that sets this design apart?

MS: Our leather briefcase, the vertical Flight Case, has come under some criticism for not having places to put specific things. Our design philosophy at MacCase is not to micro manage how our customers set up and use our products. We like to give people spaces and let them fill them as they please.
Because the leather iPad Pro Briefcase is so thin, I thought it was important to have some specific places to put things besides the Apple Pencil. So there is a place for writing pens, credit cards, the charger and cables. We still have some generic pockets where people can put what they'd like.

JKD: Do you see some of these features making their way into the Flight Case?

MS: Sure, it customers want them, we will. Our designs evolve. Adding a pen holder or business card pocket to a case design is not turning our back on what we believe.

 JKD: Can I just say that we've been doing these interviews for some time and one thing that never changes is your passion for the products, their design, and your customers.

MS: Well, none of us would be here without the people who continue to support us.  I am continually humbled by their loyalty and passion for what we do.

JKD: Thanks as aways for your time.

MS: What? No zinger questions this time? Whew. I got away with one here. Thanks Jody.

"The leather iPad Pro Briefcase case was not designed it an hour. It took a long time to get all the proportions correct, all the details just right."