Finally! After years spent missing a gold opportunity as geeks everywhere scraped out the guts of their own pocket notebooks in order to protectively ensconce their iPhones or purchased knock-off simulacrums like the Dodocase, Moleskine has finally come up with its own set of iOS device cases, allowing you to officially disguise your iPhone or iPad as one of the “legendary notebooks” favored by “Picasso, Chatwin and Van Gogh.”
The only problem is that Moleskine seems to have retained the notebook functionality of their cases, making these awkwardly shaped and conceived. Open any of these cases to use your iOS device and you’re going to be dealing with an irritating sheath of pages fluttering around. It’s bulky and it’s awkward.
Moleskine doesn’t seem to realize that what people love about the notebook iPhone or iPad case is the aesthetic. Sure, Moleskine makes notebooks, and that means they are in love with paper… but that obsession seems to have caused them to miss the point that most people use their iPhones and iPads in lieu of stationary. Instead, Moleskine has tried to awkwardly cram a notebook into an iPhone and iPad case, describing the resulting product as “analog-digital ultra-portable workstations for contemporary nomads.”
It all adds up to a strange endeavor from a classy company stumbling awkwardly into the digital age. I’d go with the Dodocase myself, but perhaps Moleskine will surprise us, and undercut the competition on price when these are finally released.
