Founded 2009 Website twelvesouth.com | Number of employees 12 | |
Twelve South is a company which produces accessories and cases, including HiRise, exclusively for use with Apple Inc products.
Contents
Operation
The company currently employs a small team of workers (fewer than 12) and aims to design, produce and manufacture 12 new accessories for Apple products every year. The company was set up in 2009 by Andrew Green and his wife Leigh Ann Green in South Carolina.
Relationship with Apple
In June 2012 Forbes suggested that Apple should buy both Twelve South and another Apple accessory company called Mophie not because of the profits of the two companies but rather that the excellent products that these companies make increase the net worth of Apple because the products they produce stand out above the competition available for Apple's competitors products.
Twelve South produces a range of products which are available for different products within the Apple Product line up, many of these are very popular and given excellent reviews.
Products
Table note
1. Where Range within the table is stated it indicates that there are several distinct designs for different functionality and compatibility of products however they still fall under the same name. 2. Some of the companies products such as the SurfacePad for MacBook's has undergone several revamps over the products lifetime, some of these revamps are just to suit new Apple MacBook designs and others were to enhance the quality of the product that was produced.
Many of these products are available in stores worldwide such as The Apple Store and on a variety of international websites including Amazon.com, and Apple's online store.
Criticism
Some of Twelve South's products have faced criticism over the fact that they can be very hard to put together due to the companies dedication to making the packaging as small as possible to reduce damage to the environment often makes the product difficult to assemble often requiring several very fiddly screws causing frustration among many customers. One reviewer on Twitter went so far as to throw his HiRise for iPhone and iPad Mini in the bin because of how difficult it was to assemble and as a result got scratched in the process of assembling it.
There are also other reviews and customers who argue that the company charges very high prices for their products which in essence are very simple products constructed mainly out of aluminium with very few moving parts. However others state that although the products are simple they are finished to exceptional standards and their prices are not very far off the prices of similar accessories that are not anywhere near as simple and look a lot cheaper to produce.
Much of the criticism of some of Twelve South's products has been reduced by the fact that the products are very flexible and will be usable even with a variety of products and cases on the products, one such example of this is the HiRise for iPhone and iPad Mini which will work with an iPhone 5 or iPad Mini without any case up to cases including those that are waterproof. This feature thus increases the value of the product as it increases the products life time and will allow it to be used regardless of what case you put the relevant Apple product in.
Reviews
Most reviews of Twelve South's products tend to give a generally positive review but with several criticisms given normally on time and effort to assemble to product and / or the price.
In response to some of the reviews saying how hard the companies products are to put together, Twelve South have put videos showing how to assemble some of their products to assist both reviewers and customers in assembling their products. Twelve South have uploaded these videos to YouTube onto the Twelve South channel.