Apple always made beautiful leather accessories. More than that, it also helped create a profitable market of third-party leather accessories for iPhone, iPad, MacBook, Apple Watch, and so on. However, as it aims to become carbon neutral by 2030, one of its most drastic changes was removing all leather accessories from its stores.
Even though it didn’t stop Hermès from selling its own leather bands for Apple Watch, Apple has indeed removed all traces of leather accessories from its website, and on its latest ad, it says exactly that while showing leather letters exploding in the air.
The issue is that Apple doesn’t offer a better replacement for leather. Of course, these accessories weren’t flawless, as depending on the color of leather you’d choose, it would age very poorly. Still, it has always been more good-looking than the controversial FineWoven cases introduced with the iPhone 15.
Interestingly, Apple knows that FineWoven wasn’t a good idea. Made from durable microtwill and 68 percent post-consumer recycled content, it might be green, but it’s less durable, gets dirt easily, scratches, and doesn’t feel premium enough to cost a whopping $59.
This is probably why when the company refreshed the iPhone 15 cases and Apple Watch bands with spring colors, it only added new Silicone cases and nylon bands but no new FineWoven accessories. While we hope Apple adds a new material for the iPhone 16 cases, such as vegan leather, it doesn’t feel like Cupertino fixed an issue, as people started looking for leather accessories elsewhere.
So, even though Apple isn’t selling them, people are still looking for leather accessories for the company’s products.
As we approach Earth Day, we’ll likely see more videos and new information from Apple about going all green. We all praise the company for trying to be less impactful in the environment. Still, as customers, we also want to get the best products possible, and, unfortunately, we don’t get that with FineWoven.
