Mophie launches Space Pack cases that add up to 128GB storage and expand battery life for iPhone 6, iPhone 6 Plus, and iPad Mini
James Vincent / The Verge :
Context & Ripple Effects
The Space Pack is Mophie stacking a second function onto a franchise it had already refreshed that year: after opening pre-orders in January on its juice pack line starting at $99.95, it is now bundling flash storage of up to 128GB alongside extended battery life for the iPhone 6, iPhone 6 Plus, and iPad Mini. That makes it one of the few ways owners of lower-capacity iPhones can buy their way out of storage limits without paying Apple's tier-upgrade pricing.
The move lands mid-run for Mophie: weeks later it ships the waterproof H2PRO battery case, and by December Apple itself enters the category with its $99 Smart Battery Case — validation that the third-party niche Mophie built was worth taking first-party.
First-order effects
- iPhone 6 and 6 Plus buyers locked into low onboard storage get an immediate workaround — up to 128GB extra capacity plus added battery life in one case purchase rather than a pricier higher-tier phone.
- Mophie's lineup shifts from single-purpose battery cases to multi-function ones, putting its $99.95-class juice pack pricing under internal pressure as the Space Pack offers more per dollar.
Second-order effects
- Apple's December entry with the $99 Smart Battery Case forces the comparison reviewers made explicit — the WSJ found Apple's case extended battery just 80% at higher cost than rivals — pushing accessory makers to compete on features like the H2PRO's waterproofing that a first-party product won't match.
- Rivals must now decide whether storage expansion is a differentiator worth copying or a dead end once iCloud tiers and streaming reduce local-storage anxiety.
Third-order effects
- The pattern points toward consolidation of the accessory layer: Mophie's independent run ends within a year when Zagg acquires it for $100M, while Apple absorbs the highest-volume use case (battery) into first-party hardware — squeezing third parties into niches Apple ignores.
- If Apple keeps iterating its own cases — it later adds Qi charging in the 2019 XR/XS versions — the durable third-party market shrinks to specialized functions (storage, waterproofing) that Apple declines to serve.
The trend: iPhone accessories are consolidating from a fragmented third-party market toward first-party competition from Apple, leaving survivors to merge or specialize in functions Apple won't build.