Originally published at: http://boingboing.net/2016/11/01/beautiful-slim-rosewood-iphon.html
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Well, it is good to know that the wood in the case is “100% genuine and naturally grown” as opposed to the other kind.
Without the engraving these things sell for as little as $4 shipped on aliexpress. I wonder how much the people who actually make them get paid per hour.
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It depends on where they come from. A friend at my local hackerspace just finished up an order for 60,000 docking stands that allowed him to not only pay off his new CNC machine, but start planning his next order.
I’m not saying stuff like this isn’t also mass produced in China where one factory can probably turn out millions. But don’t just assume everything made in bulk orders is slave labor. Now you iPhone on the other hand…
Regardless, if I was going to buy an iPhone 7, I’d been getting a wireless charging case. But the decision to make the headphones wireless and not the charging is one of the many reasons I won’t be feeding Apple’s disdain for it’s customers.
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I wouldn’t have asked had they been made of plastic. I think there is manual labor involved in polished and finished hardwood, even if the wood blanks themselves can be cut out by machine, laser-engraved, then fused to the polycarbonate shells on an assembly line.
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Perhaps. I’ve laser burned rosewood myself. It’s pretty fast and simple once you have the image. Doesn’t need much polishing. You could line them up and go over them with a brush of sealant. The sealant will find it’s level. Little if any polishing required. Let it dry, flip it over, epoxy on the rubber, let it dry, bag and ship. I’ll bet one or two people could crank out a few thousand in a couple of months working in their off hours.
I’m not saying it’s super-lucrative. But it’s not like something like this takes a lot of individualized attention.
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Could be. I can’t tell from the photos what the finish is like.
Since these are widely sold at aliexpress, I suspect they aren’t made after hours in a shop in the 1st world.
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Any idea as to the provenance of the rosewood? The trade in certain species is banned by CITES:
https://www.fws.gov/international/plants/wood-and-other-tree-products.html
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It’s pretty, but I remain baffled by people’s need to protect the back of the phone. It’s the front that matters. A fold over front cover would make this a must have.
Hi I am a lutheir and I have experience buying exotic wood like this and I want to let you know that promoting buying rosewood off of unregulated sites like eBay or alibaba is irresponsible.
Rosewood is an endagered and protected species that has an extreme poaching problem. If you bought cheap rosewood it was probably harvested illegally possibly from a protected park.
Can you consider removing this post so that you don’t promote using endagered trees to cover your phone… Try one of there walnut or maple cases both are beautiful woods.
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