El Cheap-o iPad Mini Cases Finally Show Up Along El Cheap-o iPhone 5 Cases
Posted by Michael Nace on Tuesday Aug 14, 2012 Under Apple Rumors
Plenty of iPhone 5 flotsam and jetsam is floating around the rumor mill, but where is all of the iPad mini junk? Now, some el cheap-o iPad Mini cases have surfaced. But does this really prove anything?
Ah yes, the iPad Mini. Much like the abominable snowman, chupacabra, or bigfoot, it has been long speculated on, sometimes sighted (as in within Cupertino’s secret labs), but at present, nothing has really been seen in the Apple rumor mill pipeline — until now.
According to Tapscape, a couple of el cheap-o polycarbonate plastic shell cases for the purported iPad Mini have surfaced out of China’s dollar-store manufacturing machine, along with the customary iPhone 5 cases that may — or very well may not — have anything to do with the iPhone 5 that Apple officially releases in 2012. Tapscape explains:
New iPad Mini photo leaks emerged this week which served to reconfirm collective agreement that a 7-inch Apple tablet launch is on the horizon. The iPad Mini is speculated to feature a 7-7.85 inch screen and may ship with a non-retina display in order to bring down the price to a level that is competitive with the Amazon Kindle Fire.
Those “photo leaks” of the iPad Mini, which were also commented on by 9to5Mac, are just about as sketchy as they come, which makes any synergy between those photos and these new cases tenuous at best.
Notwithstanding the fact that these two supposed iPad Mini cases are absolutely hideous, the cutouts and dimensions immediately inspire scrutiny. I won’t take all of the fun away from iPhone 5 News Blogcommentors, but Tapscape makes a few observations: “The iPad Mini case photos reveal circular openings for a rear-facing camera and a separate space for a rear-located mic. The bottom of the iPad Mini cases also have a space for the Mini Dock connector, which is widely expected to replace the current 30-pin connector in all future Apple iOS devices.”
The bottom of the clear case has an opening at the bottom, but it looks wide enough to accommodate a 500-pin dock connector. I have an old dot matrix printer in my attic — maybe I’ll go up there, salvage the serial cable connected to it, and plug it in to see if Apple is bringing back old school connectivity.
Tapscape does take these new el cheap-o cases in stride, however, adding:
Case manufacturers have a habit of prefabricating thousands of iPhone cases before the launch of a new model in hopes of being first-to-market. We saw a similar event in the lead-up to the release of the iPhone 4S – but none of the expected changes eventuated. There is a good chance that these iPhone 5 cases and iPad Mini case photos may just represent ambitious speculation based on existing rumors, but there is also a chance that they may in-fact be based on actual final-build models.
Aside from a very poor set of photos, there has been very few iPad Mini parts sightings — a bad sign that it will actually be co-released with the iPhone 5. Considering that the el cheap-o cases of 2011 were totally off-base, as were the dual release rumors of last year, it can be assumed that a report like this one not only fails to confirm the iPad Mini, but also makes the current iPhone 5 design look sketchy since, if this case manufacturer claims to have an inside track on the as-yet-unseen iPad Mini, how reliable is their information on the iPhone 5′s form factor?
By Michael Nace
Michael Nace is the Publisher of the iPhone 5 News Blog and iPhone 6 News Blog. He has published articles about the iPhone since 2010.
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August 14th, 2012 at 2:43 pm
These are exquisite,,, where do I buy one?
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August 14th, 2012 at 7:11 pm
Oh ye of little faith. Apple is building an iPad mini for me, because they know that An iPad will not fit in my back pocket but an iPad mini will. That being said, you can rain on my Parade all you want to but I’m buying one of these bad boys in September along with the El Cheapo case. Who’s with me?
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August 14th, 2012 at 8:25 pm
Take my money!
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August 14th, 2012 at 10:38 pm
I’ll take an iPad mini with a phone, please! And an el-cheapo protector.
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August 15th, 2012 at 4:37 am
About as reliable as the iPhone5 cases that were released last year just prior to the 4S being unveiled.
Utter rubbish.
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August 15th, 2012 at 8:54 am
Agreed… And I am convinced that everyone is in for a surprise with the new iPhone. I think the leaked parts are an old model, etc…
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August 15th, 2012 at 11:22 am
@Daveydog, or a new iPod… (going with the jack on the bottom…)
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August 15th, 2012 at 12:19 pm
Maybe this case is for the iPhone Maxi. You heard it here first.
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August 15th, 2012 at 12:29 pm
@daveydog… My thoughts exactly, I think Apple has orchestrated all of this. Only time will tell…
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August 15th, 2012 at 1:51 pm
@Adaz, Part of my conspiracy theory mind has me thinking the same thing, then the analytical side takes over, and starts to think…
This is an elaborate ruse, but then I think… why?
and the answers I come up with (feel free to throw in your own too…)
1. They want to throw off the competition.
The risk/benefits just don’t add up. I think it’s much more difficult to create a ruse that is believable than to just keep quiet. As it were, the thought of “leaking” parts requires them to be believable and not have relevance to the real parts, and with that, collaboration with the real designers needs to be done so that the “ruse team” doesn’t accidentally design something that the “real team” has done. (that would be hilarious…)
2. They want to lower expectations for the real launch to blow us all away.
Well, who among us enthusiasts is totally psyched about a same size screen, nano sim card (honestly, aside from the day you got it, how many have even see the sim card in your phone?), and a 9 pin connector? I barely raise my eyebrows for these things, so the bar is set pretty low. As for NFC, I find it hard to sell a battery powered debit card. The piece of plastic in my wallet works pretty well for the last 40 years (27 with the magnetic strip electronic verification as a means of use), and doesn’t need a charge cable. Gosh! imagine the fun on being out at 2am with a dead phone and needing gas. Oh well… With the leaks so far, few are really impressed, from what I see in the comments here. Most of us are just getting it because our 3G/S’s wont last another 2 years (iPhone 5/5S). So if this is the case, Apple, you’ve done it!
3. They want to lower expectations for the competition, then blow us away with the iPhone 6.
Samsung has done a pretty good job with the SG III, and the Android/iPhone ratio is about 3:1, from what I remember from the charts. However, my natural inclination is to think that A) You don’t ever let up on the competition, and B) Android/Windows/whatever (Facebook?) won’t say, “Gee, Apple kinda went limp with their iPhone, I guess we can relax.” History isn’t kind to those that don’t offer a compelling reason to buy their product. Ask Philipe Kahn (Borland), Lotus (of 1-2-3 fame), and Tandy/Radio Shack of TRS-80 fame. Those who hesitate are lost.
4. These are real parts for the iPhone 5.
If so, where are the arrests of the people that leaked them? China isn’t particularly known for their kindness to people committing industrial espionage. I haven’t seen any arrests reported or anything of the sort. This does seem like the thing that Apple/Foxconn/China would broadcast to put the fear of everyone in the supply chain. I understand risking your life/freedom to get out of a repressive state of living (I am using an example, not making a political statement; please be kind), but to do so for notoriety, money, or glory? The evidence is that Foxconn has good paying jobs by the amount of people showing up for them, so it just seems that it would be pretty easy to clamp down on that through rewards for tattling, security, inventory control, location of plant, having people sleep/work on site, etc.
Wow… it looks like I just wrote an article, and maybe I should leave it to the professionals, Michael and Charles. But, anyway, just my thoughts on the whole situation.
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August 15th, 2012 at 3:31 pm
just keeping it pretty simple… apple presumably has many different test models for each iteration… whether they intentionally leaked this or not (“whoops it leaked”), it is just as likely to be an old prototype as it is to be the actual new model to be released. And that would explain why they seemingly don’t care about the pix on the internet.
It’s been so long, I can’t even remember where they allegedly came from…
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August 15th, 2012 at 3:41 pm
It’s got disinformation written all over it.
When the cases came out last year Apple didn’t make a big deal of it, as it turned out, they were all fakes.
More cases again this year, more silence from Apple, more fakes.
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August 15th, 2012 at 3:44 pm
@Daveydog…
I think I like your analysis better. The Occam’s Razor reasoning…
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August 15th, 2012 at 4:15 pm
This was posted on another forum by a commenter. thought i might create some trouble with it over here. lol http://u.jimdo.com/www100/o/sb17029fa610ba3da/img/i767165312d26499d/1344960088/std/image.jpg
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August 16th, 2012 at 7:02 am
@Vondre
lol, might as well be…
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August 17th, 2012 at 11:06 am
I could go for a 7″ iPad Mini.
If…it was 299 and had 3/4G support to add to my Verizon acct.
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