With yesterday’s official debut of the iPhone 5, new iPod touch, and new iPod nano now firmly in the rear-view mirror, we reached out to members of the Apple accessory industry for their reactions on Apple’s announcements. Most of the reaction focused on the iPhone 5, with a few nods to the new iPods and some thoughts on the surprises — or lack thereof — from the unveiling. All of the responders in this first collection mentioned that their companies would release accessories for the iPhone 5, though some would be ready sooner than others.
“We are very excited about the new products and are proud to be one of Apple’s elite partners. Their history as a groundbreaking, highly innovative company speaks for itself: successful new products that become a big part of our pop culture. This latest change represents an opportunity for iHome to take Apple’s technological vision and deliver a line that achieves a new level of product excellence and sophistication.” – Ezra S. Ashkenazi, President and CEO, iHome
“I can’t say that I was surprised or wowed by anything announced at today’s iPhone 5 event. We have been hearing rumors of all the supposed iPhone 5 features for months now. Apple merely confirmed what the rumors were saying all this while today. I guess Steve Jobs was a better showman and better at keeping secrets right until unveiling.” – Daniel Chin, President, Sanho Corporation
“It’s absolutely a gorgeous piece of art. The iPhone 5 doesn’t change the game, it dictates where the game is going and how the game is played. That has always been Apple’s M.O. – not just an innovator but a technological trend setter designed to satisfy the masses.
Some may look at the phone and say it didn’t change much since the iPhone 4 and 4S, however, when you look closely at its craftsmanship and the beauty (of) its detail, you will realize, Apple has done it again.” – Chris Garguena, Beyond Cell
“Apple should make good money selling low cost cases to protect the metal back of the iPhone 5 from scratches. Still no word if their Bluetooth 4.0 spec contains Bluetooth High Speed. Apple’s push for developers to use more of the screen can be indicative of a future plan to merge the UI differences between iPad and iPhone. With the new color iPods, goodbye Nintendo Game Boy X.” – Matthew Klapman, CEO, Wearable Inc.
“I love Apple products, and I would go so far as to say that the iPhone 4S is the closest thing to the ‘perfect’ phone that can be made. It’s the right size, has the right features, and delivers it all in a package that is beautiful to look at and hold. Honestly, my expectations were pretty low going into the announcement because I just couldn’t see how Apple could possibly improve it on the 4S. My list of potential improvements would be: Longer battery life, better Siri performance, wireless charging. They specifically talked about longer battery life, so that’s one. They also added another noise canceling microphone. I find that Siri has the most difficulty in noisy situations so that may help address some of Siri’s deficiencies. I’m saddened that there’s still no wireless charging.
So, two out of three… not bad.” – Jiva DeVoe, Founder & Chief Software Craftsman, Random Ideas
“We have seen high demand for the iPhone 5 and view it as another step forward for the industry. The new iPods are nice, but we don’t know yet if there will be demand here.” – Kirk Feller, President and CEO, BodyGuardz
“Today’s iPhone 5 announcement proved that the leaked information we had was correct and all the time and money we spent on R&D will pay off. But we took out a little insurance by not going into production with our design in the event that the information was wrong. So now we have a new case design that still needs to be verified and we have no inventory. Ramping up inventory will take a few weeks and it will put us behind our competition, but that’s better than spending money on producing cases that we can’t sell. Again, we are a small company and can’t afford to take that chance. Leading up to today’s announcement, something inside of me was hoping that the iPhone 5 was going to be entirely different than all the leaked information. All of the companies who spent millions of dollars on early manufacturing would have had to scrap all their parts. And we would have cranked out a new case and had it on the market before the big guys because we are small and light on our feet. It just wasn’t to be for us and now I see that there is no way to keep Apple’s product development a secret when they are being made in China.” – Jeff Sasaki, CEO, Element Case
“We’re very excited about both the iPhone 5 and new iPod announcement. As a photography enthusiast, I personally love the sound of the new iSight setup – the 8 MP camera, backside illumination, dynamic low light mode – it’ll be sensational for low light situations.
