The new iPhone Pocket might just be Apple’s lamest product ever. I speak as an almost-certifiable Apple fanboy who has bought each of the company’s AirPods Pro, first, second, and third editions, uses an iPhone, owns an iPad, and is writing this on a MacBook Pro.
Designed by Issey Miyake, the iPhone Pocket is a $150 strap with a pocket for your phone. If you want a slightly longer version, Apple’s got you covered for $230.
It must be said there is some competition for the title of lamest Apple product ever.
The infamous “Apple Polishing Cloth” for $20 is up there. So are the Apple iPod Socks for $30 that former CEO Steve Jobs inexplicably allowed to hit the market. There’s a strong claim for the title from the wheels kit for the 2019 Mac Pro that cost $700, and another from the stand for the Pro Display of the same year at $999. (That’s the price for the stand, not the display.)
We can even put the Apple Power Mac G4 Cube from mid-2000 on the list: beautiful but expensive and severely limited.
Fittingly enough for a product conceived by a fashion designer, the iPhone Pocket is an accessory. It’s a 3D-knitted textile sleeve or pocket designed to hold any iPhone model, as well as anything else that fits. iPhone Pocket comes in short strap (16″, 40 cm) and long strap (31.5″, 80 cm) versions and multiple colors. It’s available now at select Apple store locations and on Apple’s web store in the U.S., U.K., France, China, Italy, Japan, Singapore and South Korea.
The construction of the iPhone Pocket might be the most interesting thing about it.
It’s 3D knitted, which means it’s made with computer-controlled knitting machines that can create complex shapes, pockets, tubes, and contours in one continuous piece. Objects that are 3D knitted, like sleeves, pockets, shoe uppers, or wearable accessories, come off the machine already shaped, with fewer seams. That means they are typically more comfortable, more durable and more flexible, and that there’s less fabric waste in construction.
There’s a few common denominators here on the competitor list for Lamest Apple Product.
They’re typically wildly overpriced, they generally solve problems that it’s not clear anyone actually has, and sometimes they feel like design challenges accidentally released into the wild. They also tend to get discontinued fairly quickly, but they’re great for memes that last longer than the products themselves.
Like this one:
That feels like it fits the new Apple Pocket.
For anyone who wants to wear their phone around their neck, there are products on Amazon. On the downside, they are not designed by Issey Miyake. On the upside, they start under $10.
Like all products from Apple, however, there’s built-in demand from a global army of people with plenty of money in their pockets. So, of course, the iPhone Pocket has sold out.
