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The Mac Book Pro Backpack - Behind the Designs

MacCase products have first and foremost, always been about transporting and protecting Apple portables. For over 25+ years our mission has not wavered. We have remained forced on making the best Mac Book Pro Backpacks we could.

From our innovative, lightweight designs to the tough, durable, waterproof materials we use, each decision is made with your comfort and the protection of your Apple laptop as our twin top priorities. With this in mind, let's get the story behind the designs of these innovative MacCase models.

Today we are again speaking to MacCase President and Chief Creative Officer Michael Santoro about the company's assortment of Mac Book Pro backpacks that are part of the company's nylon line.

JKD -Looking back over the last 25 years, what do you feel is the current state of MacCase's Mac Book Pro backpacks relative to past models?

MS - Wow, Jody thanks for jumping right in with a tough question. I appreciate that, (laughing). I think the current state of our Mac Book Pro backpacks is strong, (laughing again).

Seriously, given how much the market has changed over the last 25 years, how steep the competition has gotten and the fact that we are still here, we must be doing something right. Do we offer the breathe of styles in MacBook Pro backpacks we did 10 or 15 years ago? No, not in the nylon line we don't. But in our leather line we've surpassed what we used to do.

For our nylon line, we've taken all these years of experience making the best MacBook pro backpacka, bags, and sleeves and distilled all that knowledge down into a series of form factors we know works for our customers.

The Foundation of a Backpack For MacBook Pro

JKD -Can you share an example of this?

MS: I love when customers like internationally famous, music producer Joseph Watt writes to tell me how much he loves our current generation backpack for 16 MacBook Pro. He shared how he takes it all over the world and it becomes the thing he can't live without.

To me, at this point, it's more important to have a few excellently designed pieces in the nylon line that work for real creative, professional people in the real world than to have 20 assorted designs that are just filling space on shelves.

Professional people who use our MacBook backpacks need them to work, day in, day out. They look at our products as the foundation of their mobile lives. That means a lot to everyone here.

JKD - The line is small and concise. Is there a reason there are not more models like some of your competitors?

MS - It's not really my style to have endless solutions to what is essentially the same problem. In this case, how to protect and transport Apple laptops. We did that with the nylon line for over decade. And for that time, it worked. It worked brilliantly.

Apple's laptop offerings are closer in size than to each other than at almost any time in Apple portable history. This helps our current strategy for our Mac Book Pro backpack a lot. After all this time, we know our customers, know what their needs are, know the environments they are moving through and know what appeals to them regarding functionality.

The MacCase nylon line is about delivering an amazing value. This is why we have so many hardcore, professional travelers, artists, designers, producers who love our stuff. They can afford any bag they want but they buy a MacCase MacBook backpack that has the features of a much more epxensive bag they've been shopping. They get it.

Value Added Backpacks for MacBook Pro

JKD: Explain that. What's "value added" design to you?

These MacBook bags were designed and engineered to compete with bags twice their price. That was the design brief for all of them. We have to offer a "value added" design.

MS: All the choices we make at the design level, combined with the quality we build in, the durability, all these things add up to an experience for the customer that is well beyond the $60 or $70 they paid. That's value added for us. 

From the materials we use to how we use them, from the feature sets to how comfortable each piece is to wear all day, these relatively inexpensive MacBook bags deliver a performance that is far above their price point. The customers is getting more than they thought. Their experience exceeds their expectations.

The backpacks for MacBook Pro deliver this experience. The people who buy one and use one see this value. It's much harder to sell products this way, but you tend to build long term customers because they know they can count on you and not have to chase a "discount" price.

JKD: What do you mean by "chasing discount"? 

People who chase discounts have to ask themselves, is this 80% off price a set up? Has this bag been designed with materials and a quality target of a $19.95 retail bag marked up to $100 so someone can they sell it for 80% off?

This happens all the time. People are being trained to respond to this type of sales pitch never realizing the product was designed to the $19.95 price point from the beginning. They're being duped.

MacCase is at the other end of the spectrum. It's a million times harder to convince someone to pay for a quality MacBook Pro backpack that can compete with a model twice it's price than is it to build a $20 bag, mark it up to $100 and sell it for 80% off.

Goals for Our MacBook Backpack

JKD - So what were the goals for your MacBook backpack?

MS - We are trying to solve a broad range of problems with a very select group of form factors. We don't need dozens of models to achieve this. We spent a lot of time on the new Universal designs. We made them the best we could because we knew they would be the foundation of our nylon line.

It's the same philosophy a car company uses to build their cars more efficiently. They might have 2 basic chassis they use to build every car the company makes. They use chassis 1 for their small and medium size cars, trucks and SUVs and chassis 2 for their large cars, trucks and SUVs. The key is to make sure both your foundations, both your chassis are world class. That is what we did with the foundations of our MacBook Backpack.

Then we tweaked them and added some things to it to make them Apple specific and an even better value. We didn't need to reinvent the wheel. The base pack we had to work off of were excellent so that's what we did.

JKD - How do the current generation of MacBook backapcks fit?

MS - Unlike a lot of the bag companies out there, MacCase doesn't just put a backpack out there and hope for the best regarding fit and protection. If it's an Apple specific sleeve, bag or case we try to make sure the fit is perfect. That's one of the reasons we've been around for 25+ years.

When we approached these MacBook backpacks we had an opportunity to do something innovative in the tradition of the MacCase designs of the last 25+ years. It's really great to have 25+ years of experience to lean on when you're trying to solve these kinds of design problems with just 2 basic form factors.

Our latest Mac Book Pro Backpacks are the most innovative, lightweight, most durable and most protective we have ever made. Moreover, they represent an excellent all around value, getting you the best MacBook bag, feature for feature, for the money.

25 Years of the Best is Apple Laptop Backpacks

JKD - You've been making Apple laptop backpacks almost since day one. It sounds like you spend a lot of time thinking about these types of things, making your products better, improving the user experience and value to you customer.

MS - I hope so ( laughing). That's sort of my job. I wear a lot of hats. I like to. But there is none more important than the one that says "designer". I've been doing this a long time now. So many bag companies have come and gone since the first MacCase was created which seems like a 100 years ago now.

I'd like to think if we went away that our customers would miss us. We try to do the best work we can. It's not about widgets and nickels and dimes for us. We care. We do the best we can with what we have. We don't always get it right. No one does. Show me a band whose every album is great.

I use this little pack all the time. It's great as an Apple laptop backpack but it's also excellent as a day-use pack. I take it on vacation, hiking, etc. It's brilliant.

I when I was in this entrepreneur training program called "Fast Track" we were told the most important thing you can have is a "sustainable competitive advantage". At MacCase we have that, it's called my brain, (laughing). Again, we're still here after 25 years so I guess it's been sustainable.

I just saw on ebags that they were promoting a certain backpack saying it was their #1 laptop backpack. There was absolutely nothing new or innovative or interesting about it. Not a single thing. It was the backpack version of a beige Toyota Camry.

It looked like you were going camping. It had great distribution and good brand equity so people can see it and find it and and know the brand so they buy it. But there is a number of people who'll look at that pack and think, I want something better. I don't want to look like I'm going camping. I don't want to look like everybody else and I for sure don't want something that exceeds so brilliantly at being so utterly uninteresting.

I don't think Apple users want that either. They want an Apple laptop backpack as smart as their computer.

That person will find MacCase, find our backpack for 16 MacBook Pro or 15 Air and say, yeah, that's what I want. That works. That's me. And I know this because I talk to one of those people at least once a day.

JKD - If someone was to ask you, "Who makes the best MacBook backpack and why" how to you answer them?

MS - The best MacBook backpack is made by the company that invented the Apple-specific case market over 25+ years ago, MacCase. We have the design experience, passion and commitment that resonates within each of our designs. MacCase products deliver on the promise of protection, comfort, style and function and we do it in a long term way. MacCase has been successful at this mission longer than anyone else in the space.

That's your answer.