How Apple's free bumpers affect the case industry

Apple will be launching their free cases program at the end of this week, and its already affecting different iPhone case manufactures. Some companies most likely figure that many people will be swayed to Apple’s free bumper, as after all the case works well to solve the antenna issues and comes in a few stylish colors. Perhaps the most obvious and important reason is because of the price, free. Apple’s giving all iPhone 4 users the ability to get a Bumper for free, so why would anyone pay $29-49 for a case from someone else? 

Incipio is already realizing this so they’re running the “We love our customers too” campaign. This promotion lets users obtain their free Bumper from Apple, then send it in to Incipio for 5 bucks off one of their premium-quality cases. Incipio figures that a 5 dollar incentive will be good enough to keep themselves in the case race, and we think their campaign is quite clever. The catch is they’ll only be accepting 2 trade-ins per households, and that’s U.S. households only. But hey, what’s Incipio going to do with all those Bumpers?