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"Basically, we don't know," Lynnette Prigmore, head of product development at Proporta, told IB Times UK. "We sell cases intoApple under the Proporta brand as well as some of the third-party brands we work with and we have as much idea as you do about when a new iPhone, iPad or iPod is going to come out."

Naturally, the delay in matching accessories to the product can have an impact on how many are sold. Prigmore confirms that there is a burst of sales when a new device comes out in the shops.

"The ideal world from a retailer's point of view would be that we would have accessories on the day of the phone going on sale," she said.

"It tends to be electronic retailers who want it quicker because there is a much higher attachment rate for people buying a case at the same time that they buy a device. That is the sweet spot."

She added that the retailers generally understand that if they haven't got the device - which many of the phone shops may not have before day of launch - then the case manufacturers don't have it either.

Incipio approaches the news blackout in a very different way. CEO Andy Fathollahi said the company starts preparing for a new Apple device well in advance.

His staff monitor the rumours closely and begin to work on accessories that match those specifications.

"We start looking at possible designs around six months to a year before," he told IB Times UK.

"We take mills of devices that we carry around with us before we design the cases. We want to get a feel for what the product is going to be like. Then we carry those around with the cases on to see what that feels like because as a user you are going to live with that case for a long time and we want to make sure it is right"

Read the rest here:
iPhone 5 and Samsung Galaxy S3: The Anatomy of a Case