{"id":446970,"date":"2010-03-19T10:00:08","date_gmt":"2010-03-19T14:00:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/theappleblog.com\/?p=42601"},"modified":"2010-03-19T10:00:08","modified_gmt":"2010-03-19T14:00:08","slug":"race-to-launch-day-the-story-of-an-ipad-case-maker","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/446970","title":{"rendered":"Race to Launch Day: The Story of an iPad Case Maker"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Every major Apple product launch tends to follow a pattern that many of us have just accepted. Long lines, constrained supply and lack of accessories are all common for the launch day. But with the release of the iPad right around the corner<\/a>, one company dared to follow Apple\u2019s advice to the world. Instead of the frustrating experience of buying a new iPad and not being able to get a quality case for days or even weeks, Hard Candy Cases<\/a> will be ready to deliver on day one — and all it took was just thinking different.<\/p>\n

A visit to Hard Candy\u2019s website quickly reveals that its iPad cases will ship this month, ahead of the launch for the device itself. Digging deeper, these cases are not just generic cases that happen to fit the general size of the iPad, but quality cases that snugly fit Apple\u2019s multitouch wonder. So how did the company pull off quality products on such an amazing timeline? <\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>It begins with the resolve of Tim Hickman, the CEO of Hard Candy Cases<\/a> and founder of Speck Products<\/a>, another popular accessory manufacturer. In the traditional manufacturing process, Apple would release technical documents (or the manufacturer could measure the physical device itself) to provide precise measurements for manufacturers. The next step is the expensive and sometimes lengthy process of setting up the tooling equipment to produce cases. It\u2019s easy to see why accuracy is important. As a result, its not until a period of time after the product is released that the bulk of cases begin to enter the market. Hickman\u2019s solution was to engineer the cases in such a way that if the final device was a millimeter or so different than anticipated, specially designed bumpers inside the case could be adjusted to provide a snug fit. From a business perspective, Hard Candy Cases was able to start the tooling process weeks ago. From a consumer perspective, that means cases will be available sooner rather than later.<\/p>\n

But Hickman didn\u2019t stop there. In a move that is strangely reminiscent of Steve Jobs himself<\/a>, a little over a month ago the CEO flew to China to persuade factory workers to work through the Chinese New Year and focus on manufacturing his product. After four weeks of sleepless nights, sheer madness and a fight to the finish, Hickman’s chartered 747 delivered 18,000 Bubble Hard Sleeve cases to the U.S. Another 7,000 will be delivered before the iPad\u2019s launch on April 3.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Hickman\u2019s purpose behind this isn\u2019t to simply be the first on the market for the sake of being first. With iPad pre-orders numbering in the hundreds of thousands<\/a>, the iPad opens the door for a huge market of third-party accessories and that can mean some serious profits. Hard Candy Cases, while a figurative new kid on the block, isn\u2019t a stranger to this though. With revenue of $150,000 in its first month of operation, Hickman\u2019s company has already captured the attention of the industry. With prominent exposure in the Apple Store and the resolve of its CEO, Hard Candy Cases is poised to provide some serious competition to other popular case manufacturers, like Belkin, Speck and Incase.<\/p>\n

If you\u2019ve already pre-ordered your iPad, check out some Hard Candy Cases\u2019 products so your iPad will be protected from day one. If you\u2019ve used any of their other products, let us know what you think!<\/p>\n

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<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Every major Apple product launch tends to follow a pattern that many of us have just accepted. Long lines, constrained supply and lack of accessories are all common for the launch day. But with the release of the iPad right around the corner, one company dared to follow Apple\u2019s advice to the world. Instead of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-446970","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/446970","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=446970"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/446970\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=446970"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=446970"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=446970"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}