Nearly all of Apple’s MagSafe accessories for iPhone 12 provide a decent amount of value. But one of them has so much underutilized potential coupled with an astronomical price tag. Of course, I’m talking about Apple’s new MagSafe Sleeve.
Apple has been making really high-quality leather sleeves for various products for a couple of years now but the MagSafe Leather Sleeve is unique. Not only does the MagSafe Sleeve include a card slot, it also has a window that displays the clock and occasionally pertinent information. Unfortunately, Apple hasn’t taken full advantage of what it’s created.
Improving the Call Screen & Notifications
Right now you can see incoming calls through the window, but that’s about it. You can’t even answer the call through the window. Apple can do a bunch of things to not only improve the calling experience, they can also use the window to show off incoming notifications. Below you can see how Apple could let you slide to answer through the window and see the status of an ongoing call.
There’s also more than enough room for Apple to show notifications like upcoming calendar appointments. Some apps like Messages could offer a dictation button so that you could reply without taking your iPhone out of the sleeve.
Adding Playback Controls
One of the things we use our iPhones for most is audio. Apple could easily show a now playing screen with album art within the window. They could use multiple pages so that you can swipe over for playback controls like play/pause, forward and backward.
Apple also added unique pill-shaped device connection notifications in iOS 14 and they could allow them to show through in the window. Below you can see what it would look like when you tap your iPhone to a HomePod or put on your AirPods Max.
Clock & System Settings
The MagSafe Sleeve currently displays a clock through the window in colors that match your sleeve of choice. Apple could add status indicators like battery life and active alarms to this clock view. If you tapped on the clock you could see full-color indicators and additional information like the time of your alarm or even an active timer. Currently the clock shows up as dark text on a light background, they ought to reverse that to not just help save battery life but to make text and icons more readable.
Lots of people keep their iPhone connected to power when they’re updating its software. When updating inside the MagSafe Sleeve you could be able to see the status of a software update both while it is downloading and while it is installing.
Control Center is another really important component of iOS and some of the controls could be easier to access with the sleeve on. For instance, it’d be great if you could quickly enable Do Not Disturb or Airplane Mode.
The MagSafe Leather Sleeve is already a great accessory but here’s hoping Apple decides to add more functionality in future iOS updates. Apple’s MagSafe Leather Sleeve is available for $129 for iPhone 12 mini, iPhone 12/12 Pro, or iPhone 12 Pro Max in a variety of colors. You can also check out 9to5mac’s hands on video with the MagSafe leather sleeve here.
