Apart from the Expandable Spring-like Plastic Chamber, a very common design used in dozens of mini speaker brands, we have another speaker prototype with a different structure and 3 different speaker/sub-woofer configurations. Why? Because we have used a passive radiator with the sub-woofer in this expandable design, as shown in the animation and this provides a better base effect, but at the same time there is a bit of an extra vibration when playing certain songs with strong base. This vibration is designed to be absorbed by the soft rubber padding that will go in between the speaker box and the structure holding the keyboard. But are we going to be able to type on the keyboard while having the music at full blast? We will not know this for sure until the entire product is ready. If the vibrations cannot be controlled up to an acceptable level, we will use the best of the 3 other structures. But both are a 2.1 Stereo System with Crystal Clear Sound and a strong Bass performance and they will easily beat almost every single stand-alone Mini Speakers out there today. The sound system is very important to me personally and I assure you that this product will ship with the absolute best sound our money can buy. 

Apart from changing the world, you can also use the roughly 10,000 mAh battery power to fully recharge an iPad 2 almost one and a half times or recharge an iPhone almost 7 times. I firmly believe that nobody in this world should be seeking more power than this. The batteries will be made with Japanese Integrated Circuits to reduce the risk of failure and malfunction. And for reference, a 9000 mAh Power Bank is sold for $130 here.

Above are the layouts of the Full Sized Standard Keyboard and the keyboard on this product. The tooling for the Keyboard has already been made and the manufacturer is one of the largest in China and makes keyboards for some of the top Computer Brands in the world. To show how my layout is almost similar to the full sized Keyboard layout, I will describe which keys I modified in each rows and how it was modified to fit into the slightly lesser space I had and I will start from top to bottom. Believe me, if you want to know why this layout is unique, this is the only way to do it.

First Row - I removed the last small DELETE Key, since we already have a big Delete key and then distributed the rest of keys according to the available space. All the keys remain the same size.

Second Row - The DELETE key remained untouched and unchanged. I reduced the length of all the other keys just a tiny bit and distributed these keys according to the space available.

Third Row - All the 10 LETTER keys from Q to P, the most important keys, remained untouched and unchanged. The last 3 keys of this row, the keys that most people will never use in their lifetime, were reduced according to the space available. Then the TAB key was replaced by the Letter key, which is still quite big enough for the occasional use of the Tab key. 

Fourth Row - All the 9 keys from A to L, the most important keys, remained untouched and unchanged. I used the big DELETE key in place of the ENTER key and then reduced the 2 keys in between the L and ENTER key and the CAPS LOCK key a little bit according to the available space.

Fifth Row - All the 10 keys from Z to ?, remained untouched and unchanged. I used the big ENTER key in place of the 2 SHIFT keys.

Sixth and last Row - The SPACE key, the most widely used key and the ARROW keys, remained untouched and unchanged. The other 6 keys were reduced a bit to fit into the available space and they are still pretty big and long in size. 

All keys described as "untouched and unchanged" remain exactly the same as the Standard keyboard in every single ways. No other existing keyboard case has a layout so similar to the original layout. And today, it looks simple and easy but it took me 11 months to figure out a solution that made such a layout possible. 

This stand opens pretty tall and it will allow you to raise the iPad to a comfortable height. And the other end of this stand can be attached to any of the 4 mounts and become a mounting solution with a long and adjustable Arm.

There will be times when all you will need to carry is your iPad and nothing else. This one is for such times.

Many people like to raise their keyboards from the back to a certain angle for a comfortable typing experience. Normally, you would need to buy a separate stand to be able to do that. But in this product, you can open just the middle stand and adjust your keyboard to a comfortable angle. Also, if we ship the product with the Expandable Speaker Chamber, the deployment of the chamber would become impossible without this stand.

You will get 2 Suction mounts in each package. Connect this mount to any smooth and glass-like surface and mount your iPad on it. For rough and textured surfaces, we will include 4 thin Suction plates, which will be smooth like glass from one side and the other side will have a strong adhesive tape. This plate can be glued or screwed to any surface and then the mount can be attached to it. Basically, with this technology, you can mount your iPad on any flat surface in your bathroom or in the cockpit of a B-52 and everything else in between it. This tiny piece of hardware is your Universal Mounting System for the iPad.

If there is a place where you are always mounting you iPad, like maybe in the kitchen or in the kids room or in your office and if you do not want to connect and disconnect the suction mount all the time, then this is the mount you will need to use.

If you want to mount your iPad, flat against any surface, then this is what you will need. You can stick or screw this mount to any flat surface and then attach your iPad to it. You will get 2 of these in the package. And whether you stick it or screw it, if you have to detach the iPad and when you detach the iPad, the mount will stay attached to the surface and the internal structure will become exposed. To hide this, we will include 2 covers that can be directly attached to the mount and cover it. We can also stick a picture on this cover and make it look like a small round Photo frame instead of a round plastic attached to the surface. 

This wrist support is a simple thin plate with fold-able legs that can be attached to the edge of the keyboard. It will provide an extra level of comfort while typing and is good for someone who may have to type a lot at times and who is used to resting their wrist/palm on the laptop surface while typing. Most people many not need this but some others will definitely love it.

1. A Sturdy protection for your iPad 2/3/4 or iPad Air.

2. An almost full size Bluetooth Keyboard. 

3. Integrated 10,000 mAh backup battery power.

4. Integrated 2.1 Stereo System.

5. Integrated Versatile Detachable Stand. 

6. Integrated Stand to raise your keyboard from the back.

7. A Stylus and a Slot/Pocket for it. 

8. Two Suction Mounts and four Suction Plates. 

9. One Screw Mount.

10. One Strap Mount with three different lengths of Velcro Straps.

11. Two Flat Mounts with two Covers.

12. A Car Seat Headrest Mount.

13. A High Stand that can also become a High Mount. 

14. Wrist Support.

15. A Cover Stand. 

16. A Bag for the iTrans4mer.

China Stand Patent.

China Complete Design Patent.

Taiwan Stand Patent.

PCT International Patent Application - In addition to the 3 Patents above, we also have a PCT International Patent Application approved from the USA and this will protect the design of the Stand in 148 major Countries under The Patent Co-operation Treaty until the year 2015. Application # PCT/US2012/61092 has established that 27 of the 30 claims for the Design of the Stand are Valid. They found that all the 10 claims in regards to the NOVELTY of the design are valid. Meaning that nothing like this Stand ever existed before and nothing like it exist today. It then found that all the 10 claims in regards to the INDUSTRIAL APPLICABILITY are also valid. It simply means that the design of the Stand is not only completely new, but it also has some use in practical life. In regards to the INVENTIVE STEP part, where they determine if the product or the design is an invention or not, it found 7 of the 10 claims to be valid. Meaning that 7 of the 10 aspects or elements of this design are New Inventions. Only one single element and 2 related parts are not an Invention because something a little bit similar to it existed before, even though it looks quite different and is in a different category of product. All the above documents indicate that there was nothing like this product ever made before and nothing like it exists today and I intend to keep it that way for some time to come. 

Patents Pending - Apart from the above patents, we have the following Patents Pending and we will be applying for more Patents for the Stand under the PCT and more patents for the Mounts in all the important countries and major markets of the world. 

1. Invention Patent for Design and Idea of the Stand. Application - 201210302802.9.

2. Layout of the Keyboard. Application - 201330064740.8.

3. Mounts and the Mounting System. Application - 201320843853.2.

4. A new Embodiment of the China Stand Patent. Application - 201320843855.1.

By now, most of you must be familiar with the usual Sales Pitch, Risk and Challenges, manufacturing process, etcetera, etcetera. So I did not want to repeat all that here again. Just the important stuff. And the first and the only important subject is the Quality of the Product. Since 2011, I have communicated with about 300 companies and visited about 70-80 of them all over the place. I have quite a bit of knowledge about how many of the factories actually operate and about the different raw materials and plastic resins and different quality of steel used for tooling and some of the process, machines and technologies used in manufacturing of electronics and the actual cost of many of these products and so many other things that cannot be described in words here. Of course, I don't know everything about this huge industry, but just enough to make sure that I know what I have to do and how to do it the right way. Just like Emperor Shah Jahan, who probably was not an engineer or an architect and yet was able to build something like the Taj Mahal. 

In recent months, I have visited about 25 new electronics manufacturers and most of them are manufacturing wide range of products for one or more of the top consumer electronics brands like Sony, Toshiba, Canon, Panasonic, Casio, Microsoft, HP, Dell and it will be one of these companies that will be making the iTrans4mer for us and it will be manufactured to the same high standards and I will absolutely not agree to anything less than that and this will be enshrined in the Legal Agreement that will be prepared by the law firm of Harris & Moure. In addition this product has been designed in such a way that it very easy for it to win the title of - Mother of all Keyboard Cases. 

I have a dream and it is to make this product so absolutely insanely amazing that once the world comes to know about what this product really is, there will be a waiting list of customers wanting to buy the iTrans4mer.

My job here is almost done now. Apart from tying up some loose ends and finalizing few things here and there, the only thing left for me to do is sign on the dotted line and let the manufacturing experts take over from here. As soon as I have the funding in place, I will take the negotiations with some of these companies to the next stage and when I find the right one, I will make them an offer they can't refuse.

Hello and Thank you for your interest in the iTrans4mer.

My name is Ravish Sony. I started my life in India and have been living in the Cayman Islands since 1997. After finishing my high school, I worked mostly as a waiter in several Hotels/Restaurants, including about 2 years in Jamaica and then about 4 years in the Cayman Islands. After I got laid off due to 9/11, I started buying and selling used cars, imported from Japan, which I did full time until the end of 2011, when it was time to go to China. 

This journey started around February of 2011 and around the middle of that year, after buying and studying all kinds of accessories, I felt that the Keyboard Case could become an important accessory for the iPad and it was very obvious that this product category had a lot of space for improvement. And then I looked at several of the other iPad accessories and I could feel that there was something wrong about what I was seeing and then I got an idea and I decided to do something about it. Based on the funds I was going to get from different sources, I was given to understand that it was enough to design the product according to my ideas, make the tooling and at the least get a small batch out into the market. And few manufacturers gave me a time frame of about 4-5 months for the product to start rolling off the assembly line. So I told my people that I will be back in 2 weeks and got into a plane to China. But unfortunately and fortunately, nothing at all worked out according to the plans and the assumptions because first of all, this product wasn't supposed to be an ordinary one and on top of that, I had zero knowledge about anything remotely related to this industry. Before I came to China, I had what I thought were some brilliant and amazing ideas, but most of them turned out to be kind of crazy and stupid and I realized this after I talked to dozens of engineers at more than 30 big and small manufacturers around several Chinese cities. But me having no prior experience turned out to be a very positive factor rather than negative.   

So, I had to sort of go back to the drawing board and forget about one of the things that I wanted in my product. But I had one original idea, demonstrated in this Animation made around June of 2011, which I knew would make this product better than everything that existed around. I did not know how exactly that could be done, but I knew that it could done and I knew that it had to be done. There was just no other way to save mankind from the burden of tons of accessories that were and are being made for the iPad. And I said to myself - if Man is thinking of conquering Mars, then he can do this one too. And looking back, I had absolutely no idea that my product will eventually end up eliminating the need not just for the simple stand, which was the first target, but also almost all kinds of stands and almost all kinds of mounts and a full sized keyboard and a large external battery pack and mini-speakers and few other accessories. Together, all these make up about 70-80% of the iPad accessory market. This product always reminds me of the small helicopter in the suitcase that James Bond had in one of his movies. Looking at the product from the outside, no one can guess what is hidden inside it and all that it is capable of doing. Just imagine a world where an iPad user has to buy only one single compact set of Accessories and no need to buy any covers or cases or stands or mounts or keyboard or backup battery or mini speakers and few other things. Wouldn't that be wonderful?

Anyways, so here I am and I have now spent about 5000 hours in the last 2 years sitting down and breaking my head with 9 different engineers and designers in an attempt to make the perfect accessory for your iPad. Can you believe that? And most of those engineers and designers did not understand much English except for few words. To communicate with them, I had to find people around who could translate a bit of English and then sometimes I would use illustrations, sometimes paper or cardboard prototypes, sometimes sign language and sometimes Google Translate. Looking back, I realize that 95% of this time was spent on designing solutions that failed for one or the other reason and in designing features that I cannot or don't want to use and in making changes that had to be abandoned eventually.

The first and the biggest challenge was to find a way to attach and detach the top and the bottom part. This solution had to look good when attached and detached, should be able to detach and re-attach easily and quickly, had to be strong enough to hold the weight of the iPad and then the iPad and the bottom part together, at the same time had to be thin and light weight and small enough to be integrated into the product, should not be difficult or expensive to manufacture, should not require any special material or process and finally should be able to make the life of an iPad user a little better. If you fail even in one of the above departments, the entire product could fail. Or at the least I could not call it Perfect. It took 8 months and about 9-10 attempts at different ideas and different designs to finally find the mechanism that could work and another 14 months to make it the way I wanted it. 

It was a similar story with the Speakers too and lasting about 7 months because we started with Zero knowledge about Audio and Acoustics and we had a tiny amount of space to work with. And I wasn't gonna put speakers there just to be able to say that my product too has speakers. That would be an insult to my intelligence. I had to constantly keep examining every single feature and every single part and every single corner of the product and keep asking myself over and over and over again - Could this be made any better? Are you happy with the way it looks and the way it works? Is there anything about it that you don't like? Isn't there an easier or better way to do this? Is this the best you can do? Could there be any problems with it in the future? Is there anything about it that could make a customer unhappy and complain about it?  

5000 hours with Engineers, 4 complete Prototypes, 8 Patents, 3 years of travel, hotels, transportation, other business expenses, personal expenses, etcetera, etcetera and an Amazing Product. Not bad for just $250,000, I think. And now the iTrans4mer is ready for production. I am stuck here in China and have no more money left. Please help me bring this product to life. 

Thank you for your time.

Sincerely, 

Ravish Sony.

ravishsony@appricott.com

AppRicott Ltd., Cayman Islands.
AppRicott Inc., USA.
AppRicott HK Ltd., Hong Kong.