A “plastic bag” or “an iPad case”? You be the judge.

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A “plastic bag” or “an iPad case”? You be the judge.

March 15th, 2010

Filed under: iPad

I was surfing on Amazon over the weekend and decided to see what would come up when I searched for "iPad". One of the first results was: TrendyDigital WaterGuard Waterproof Case/Cover for Apple iPad, Blue Border and what caught my attention was that it only had one star. That seemed pretty severe, given that the iPad was only available for pre-order on Friday. How could an accessory already be getting bad reviews?!

The answer? Amazon reviewer ffass from Brooklyn, NY United States gave it a one-star review because "This appears to be a $20 plastic bag. Very trendy, indeed." ffass went on to say: "Wow. 'TrendyDigital' hopes that hyperventilating iPad users will be crazed enough to by [sic] this $20 bag for their spiffy new gadgets. Give me a break."

Sure enough, that's what it looks like, although to be fair it also has a strap to "wear around neck or shoulder." The product description says it is a "Great companion when you use your Ipad [sic] at the beach, near the pool side, in the bathtub or at the kitchen table."

One man's "plastic bag" is another man's "custom-made form fitting transparent case" and these are the distinctions which make marketing the multi-billion dollar industry that it is. I learned from Neven Mrgan than you can, in fact, use an iPhone in a plastic bag (useful for checking recipes on your iPhone while cooking), so it is possible that this "WaterGuard" case would work just fine. What strikes me as odd is that when I went back to look today, the review no longer appears on the product page.

If I go to fass' profile page, the review and rating still appear, but if you click through to the product page it says "No customer reviews yet."

I can't offer any explanation for this, and I wouldn't want to jump right into conspiracy theories when some sort of technical glitch seems much more likely, but I suspect that we will start to see a wide range of random iPad accessories of debatable merit start to show up. Have you spotted any? Let us know in the comments.

TUAW A "plastic bag" or "an iPad case"? You be the judge. originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Mon, 15 Mar 2010 17:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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