As you’ve probably all assumed by now, we encountered more delays with our latest iPhone 5 revision. We have underestimated the number of revisions, and the amount of time the manufacturers would need for each revision. We apologize for this, but know you guys want a high quality product above all else. So do we.

More time also means more money. We’ve already spent every dollar we raised on the development of our initial order, and have had to pitch in even more of our own money to supplement. A larger company would be able accelerate the development, but we don’t have anywhere near the amount of cash required.

The ReadyCase may look simple, but the design is fairly complex. Making all the components from different suppliers work together seamlessly in such a thin package has taken a few tries to get right. We make many adjustments in each revision, but unfortunately some of those adjustments are missed by our manufacturers and they need a second attempt. Each attempt takes multiple weeks, and it becomes very frustrating for everyone.

In the case of our most recent revision, the plastics manufacturer had quite a bit of work to do on our mold and kept pushing back their delivery date each week. We noticed this pattern, and that is why we refrained from passing their estimates on to you guys only to adjust it a week later when we’re told the samples still aren’t ready.

The good news is we received the samples today, and are happy to report our major issues have been resolved. The bad news is that they failed to address two of our minor requests in this round. The settings for the lens ring and our new USB module are still off by micrometers. Fortunately these changes are minor and won’t take as long, but it is still very disappointing. We hate to keep you guys waiting, and we’ve had to sacrifice some major distribution opportunities in the process.

Thank you again for hanging in there. We’ve been using the last ReadyCase revision ourselves for about a month now and we’re excited to finally get it in your hands. I’m sure those of you who have bumped into us in public and played with the case feel the same way. We will be sending out a short survey to all indiegogo contributors soon which will allow you to pick your multitool color preference, and update your shipping address if necessary. Look out for that in the coming weeks. We’re close!

In the meantime, here is a photo of our finalized packaging.

Here is the final iPhone 4/4S ReadyCase body prototype. It has the final finish and is now ready for production! The iPhone 5 looks the same, but is a week behind because its chamfered edge requires a little more retooling time. We are zeroing in on a shipping date so stay tuned.

We are still waiting for the latest prototype to be completed with our final soft touch finish. If the test run is successful, the sample will be sent to us for evaluation and we could start production as early as next week.

In the meantime, here is a photo of the packaging we are working on:

Here is a new photo sample from our manufacturer. We’re getting very close! Look out for a production update early next week.

UPDATE!

It has been awhile since there have been any meaningful updates to post, so we want to share some details about how new prototypes are created, and why each revision takes a very long time.

After our last update, we started the process of making design changes with the manufacture. This process is very slow and involves a lot of back and forth and negotiations between us and them. We discuss the problems with the previous prototype, propose possible solutions, and try to agree on costs and delivery dates.

Once everything is agreed upon, the manufacture begins modifying the tooling. This is another complicated process that involves adding new material to the existing tool and reshaping it to the new specifications. This takes awhile to get right, and we’ve been waiting over three weeks for them to finish this step. All the waiting and delays from the manufacturer make us just as frustrated as you guys are.

But the good news is we finally got word today that the prototypes are finished, so we should have them in our hands later this week. If everything looks good we’ll start our production run and ship to our customers a couple weeks later!