Hasta La Ideas

Here we go again: with this September’s release of the iPhone 5, third parties have yet another excuse to revisit the iPhone case. We’ve passed on a lot of the usual suspects, but a pair of independently-developed Kickstarter cases are noteworthy for their ultraminimal approach. Alex Karp’s “Bummpies” and mod-3’s “Radius” case kicked off their campaigns within 24 hours of one another last week, and although they’re different enough that they’re not outright competitors, both cases abide by the less-is-more approach to design.

First of all, I should clarify that Bummpies will work with the three most current models of iPhone: seeing as Karp’s been working on the adhesive bumpers for 16 months, he must have started designing them for the 4/4S and simply tweaked them for the new model. This gives him a significant edge in terms of potential customers.

The mod-3, on the other hand, has the ambiguous advantage of a Harvard-educated designer and CAD-geeky backstory: Hendra Bong holds a graduate degree in Architecture the Ivy League school. (A bit of digging reveals that Karp actually studied mechanical engineering but has since shifted his professional focus at HP.)

Bummpies are made of polyurethane rubber and are attached with a semi-permanent (but removable) adhesive from the materials experts at 3M. The corners for the Radius are made of 6061 aluminum with a non-slip lining; they’re held in place by an X-shaped brace, which is secured with a tiny screw (as is the case with many of Apple’s offerings).

Videos after the jump…

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