Is leather smart cover made of real leather?

[iPave]

I'll be getting my iPad 2 and a smart cover once they become available in Finland next Friday. I really like the look of black smart cover. However, I'm not sure what material it is actually made of (real leather or artificial leather). Due to ethical reasons, I don't want to buy it if it's made of real leather.

Apple just states on their website that "The leather Smart Cover is crafted from high-quality, naturally treated material that gets its color from a rich aniline dye."

Does anyone know what is this "high-quality, naturally treated material"?

 

[Phil A.]

The UK site describes it as aniline-dyed Italian leather. Under UK trade description laws, it would be illegal for Apple to describe it as leather if it wasn't made from real leather.
I doubt it will be full grain and I suspect it will be the heavily processed pressed out split leather but it will have originated on an animal.

 

[Gav2k]

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 4_3 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/533.17.9 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.0.2 Mobile/8F190 Safari/6533.18.5)

It has to say fake if it's not real so it'll be real and why worry about it? It'll be from a cow that has long been eaten. It's not like it's from and exotic snake or croc!

 

[aristobrat]

The US online Apple Store refers to them as aniline-dyed Italian leather.

 

[livspop]

Finally got my Tan one today. It doesn't really smell like leather. More like a chemically-leatherish smell. Hard to describe. But I do know that as soon as it came, my GF put her nose on it to sniff it and she left a huge smudge! Careful for that... I guess now I'm gonna have to get a red one!

 

[reputationZed]

I was under the impression they were made from unicorn hyde.

 

[master-ceo]

The genius at the apple store told it me it was The same leather Louis Vuitton uses. Haha real talk.

 

[leenak]

W
It has to say fake if it's not real so it'll be real and why worry about it? It'll be from a cow that has long been eaten. It's not like it's from and exotic snake or croc!

Most leather comes from cows that were killed for their leather and aren't eaten. There may be some leather that comes from cows that are eaten but that is very rare, especially in the US, Canada, Europe, etc.

And of course some people have issues with killing cows for consumption, whether it is for food or for leather goods.

 

[trssho]

It better be, I paid $75 w/ tax for the thing. What a sucker for an Ive's design!

 

[RadicalxEdward]

It's definitely a very very thin slice of leather but it's soft as heck.