Speculative Moldmaking
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Photo is representative only, this is NOT the iPhone 5! So don’t spend your money.
During the industrial design process, there is a time to change your mind and a time not to change your mind. With the projects I worked on involving molded plastics, for instance, the design might change dozens of times until we “cut steel” (slang for having the steel molds cut, which ran into five, sometimes six figures). Then it was too late to make changes. Or to be more specific, if design changes were needed at that point, a deep-pocketed company could absorb the costs—but you or someone on your team was definitely getting fired.
Which is why I found the following tale so interesting. In the past few months Hard Candy Cases, a manufacturer of Apple accessories, received leaked 3D files of the exterior dimenions of the purported iPhone 5 from not one, but three different Chinese manufacturers claiming to have the inside skinny. HCC Pres Tim Hickman had cases designed to fit these new dimensions, then ponied up the $50,000 to cut steel for them.
Why on Earth would he take such a gamble? Well, think about it: If Apple doesn’t release dimensions of a new iPhone until launch day, your competition is scrambling to design to the new specs and it will take them days or weeks to get production models ready; meanwhile you swoop in with truckfuls of ready product. You’re the only game in town, the market is yours, and that $50,000 in the red will quickly turn blacker than Steve Jobs’ turtleneck.
Hickman bet wrong, of course. Businessweek has the full and fascinating story in “The Shadowy World of iPhone Cases”, which also details the more conservative approach taken by HCC competitor Speck:
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