Spotlighted in an editorial today on the wasteful manufacturing and packaging of Apple accessories, Ozaki’s new lineup of iCoat cases and film protectors for the iPad stand out more because of their stunningly crazy boxes than most of the products inside. Of the entire collection, the only really interesting cases are the iCoat Bubble series, TPU plastic with bubble and diamond patterns on their backs, plus Apple iPad Dock-tapered moldings near their Dock Connectors.
The rest, including the vulcanized neoprene iCoat Velvet, the cheap faux leather iCoat Sew, the totally plain plastic shield iCoat Crystal — which arrived scratched, amazingly — and the awfully thin iCoat Silicone, all feel as if their metal-accented hard plastic boxes were manufactured and designed with more care. Most egregious was that iCoat Invisible, a single piece of thin screen protecting film and a cleaning cloth in a box that could easily be mistaken for a clipboard.
Finally, there’s the iNeed Care Kit, which combines one of the bad iCoat Crystals with an iCoat Velvet and an iCoat Invisible. Note to Ozaki: youNeed help reducing the incredible waste generated by the packaging of these generally unimpressive products.
