A lot of these tests are industry standards, while others are unique to OtterBox and have been molded after customer horror stories. "We started analyzing how people live their lives so that it's not just a bunch of people in lab coats that think this will be a good test", says Staggers. That's how it created the purse test. According to Staggers, the team learned from its customer service department that women's purses were ground zero for phones. Because it had no scientific way of replicating the inside of a purse, OtterBox transformed a Maytag dryer into a purse tumbler. A phone, enclosed in one of the company's cases, gets put into a satchel with a nail file, a hair brush, car keys and other trinkets you'd normally find inside a purse. The satchel then gets put into the tumbler for a total of 100 revolutions with a meter drop at each end.
OtterBox also has a jeans iphone screen protector leaves residue test that looks like a DJ scrubbing a turntable, It's a a machine that rubs a piece of fabric on a case over and over again to mimic two years worth of slipping it inside of your pants pocket, And if the case or smartphone doesn't survive the P.I.T.?, "We send feedback to engineers, make the necessary adjustments and test again", says Staggers, Most cases can be ready to ship in as little as eight weeks from the time the engineers receive the information they need from a phone manufacturer..
And when it comes to dealing with the latest iPhone, even OtterBox is kept in the dark. So time is of the essence. "It's all hands on deck at that point," says Brycen Smith, Engineering technician supervisor. "We get that information the same day as the general public."But with phones getting tougher, and cases getting cheaper, OtterBox is looking beyond its rugged cases to keep ahead. This year it launched the Universe series as a response to the modular smartphone trend. Instead of buying a modular phone like the LG G5 and the Motorola Moto Z , the Universe case lets you transform any smartphone into a modular phone by attaching different accessories. Thanks to these add-ons, your phone can become a tripod, bluetooth speaker, wallet, pro-camera or battery pack.
The accessories don't go through the P.I.T., but the case itself is held to the same rigorous testing standards as the rest of the OtterBox products, And because it can't predict the next fad, new smartphone-protection challenges are always around iphone screen protector leaves residue the corner, The secret behind OtterBox's rugged cases may lie inside the P.I.T., a lab devoted to torturing phones in the worst ways possible, If you've ever dropped a bare phone on a cement floor, you've probably experienced that nail-biting anguish of turning it over to assess the damage..
Second, Microsoft has also been pretty clear that this version is just for developers, not consumers, and that there's no telling when that might ever change. There's not much incentive for developers to create apps for HoloLens, because there's no knowing when there'll be a market for them. If you're expecting to find an app store filled with cool augmented reality creations, think again. And then there's the thing that Microsoft hasn't been communicating quite as well -- how uncomfortable the HoloLens can be to use.
