At January's Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, New York-based artist David Kassan amazed attendees by creating color portraits using an iPad and a stylus.

Meanwhile, Apple-related booths all over the exhibition floor utilized X-shaped iPhone display stands in an effort to attract consumer attention.

AluPen and Xtand, a stylus and stand, stood out from the crowd with their simple designs and environ-mentally friendly aluminum-alloy construction. Both are made by a German-Taiwanese hybrid called Just Mobile.

The AluPen iPad stylus.

In business for seven years, Just Mobile was an OEM manufacturer before getting into Apple accessories.

Just Mobile owner Erich Huang recalls that he decided to leave Taipei and go back to central Taiwan to work just as his friend Nils Gustafsson, who was based in Germany, was looking for someone to help him with purchasing.

One international phone call later, the two men had decided to go into business together, establishing the Just Mobile brand in 2005 to make cellphone chargers and network cards for PDAs. While Huang scoured Taiwan and mainland China for components and oversaw manufacturing, Gustafsson handled European sales and processed OEM orders from major manufacturers.

"In those days, we were mostly focused on our OEM business," says Huang. "We could barely keep up with the orders. We were also selling under our own Just Mobile label, but the brand was little more than a name."

But with the rise of multifunctional smartphones, the need for some hardware accessories declined. At the same time, increasingly intense competition among major cellphone makers encouraged them to use their scale to move into and dominate the accessories market to boost their own profits. With OEMs getting squeezed out, Just Mobile began thinking about new directions for its business.

Huang decided to target fans of Apple products, consumers who are known for their appreciation of good design and high-quality manufacturing. He figured that these traits and the burgeoning of iPhone fever made iPhone accessories a good bet.

The young, vibrant Just Mobile team are conquering global markets from the company's headquarters in Taichung.

The problem was that there were already so many Apple accessories: batteries, chargers, cases, screen protectors. Where was Just Mobile to begin?

The company decided to go with a "blue ocean" strategy. Instead of diving into the brutal competition in the high-margin cover and screen-protector markets, they would take a different route, producing dedicated iPhone stands. Featuring fluid forms and aluminum construction, Just Mobile's stands can be set up either horizontally or vertically, and echo the design vocabulary of the Mac. Taking their name, the "Xtand," from their X shape, they created the first stands in the world designed exclusively for iPhones.

Once the company went into production, it sent samples to one of the US's most trusted reviewers of Apple products-iLounge-for an expert opinion. A few days later, the editor reviewing the product posted an odd review. While stating that the Xtand was beyond reproach in terms of quality and functionality, he noted that few consumers used stands and that "The 'stand' is a dying breed of accessory."

Much to Just Mobile's surprise, Apple fans embraced the product enthusiastically, finding it perfectly to their taste. The company immediately introduced a follow-up product, the Xtand Pro for MacBooks. Soon, Apple employees in the company's flagship Fifth Avenue store and Covent Garden European headquarters were placing orders, and dozens of companies were leaping into the emerging stand wars. The product's popularity even caused iLounge to change its tune and acknowledge that Just Mobile's stand was a must-have accessory.

courtesy of Just Mobile

Just Mobile then partnered with the renowned Danish design house Tools Design to further burnish its "Scandinavian aesthetic."

Huang had taken part in a Scandinavian design industry tour organized by the Taiwan Design Center in 2008. Impressed with Tools Design's application of a refined aesthetic sensibility to one of Eva Solo's lines of kitchenware, he drafted a cooperation proposal the moment he got back to Taiwan.

Tools Design agreed and enthusiastically began work on iPhone accessories, relishing the challenge of what was to it a new product category. After designing a mount for use in automobiles and a mouse pad, it introduced the AluPen stylus in 2010, providing Just Mobile with yet another star product.

Inspired by the six-sided wooden pencil, the aluminum-bodied, rubber-nibbed stylus was designed to be a bit chunky so it would feel better in the hand. Global sales exceeded 100,000 units in its first quarter on the market, and some would-be buyers found it impossible to get their hands on one. Mainland Chinese knock-offs hit the market within two months of the AluPen's introduction, prompting Just Mobile to make the brand labeling on their packaging more prominent, to avoid confusion.

In an age when manufacturing products in China is standard practice, Just Mobile continues to produce its accessories entirely in Taiwan. "Taiwanese manufacturers value their reputations and quality," explains Huang. "They may be a little more expensive, but they're absolutely worth it."

Take the Cooling Bar, for example. Huang himself designed and developed the product, an iF prize winner, to elevate the back of a laptop. Ensuring that the bar doesn't slide while in use requires meticulous manufacturing.

Or take Tools Design's Alupad mouse pad. While it looks rather plain, the pad actually consists of a plastic-wrapped aluminum slab that is difficult to produce. Once the aluminum is trimmed, it is covered in plastic by means of injection molding. But aluminum can warp when cooling, making exact control of the machine temperature, rate of cooling, and other aspects of the production process crucial to producing a seamless finish.

The Xtand and the Lounge stand, designed for the iPhone by Just Mobile.

Just Mobile, which aims to deliver luxury at an affordable price, has managed to make inroads into the European market after just three years in the design business. In fact, the brand has earned a solid reputation as an accessories maker in Germany, France, the UK and Italy.

"If you get the design right, everything else is relatively easy," says Huang, noting that Just Mobile products have appeared in Apple-related publications and websites around the world, including Macworld and MacLife.

A recent Tools Design creation, an aluminum iPad stand known as the Slide, recently beat out more than 4,000 other products to win one of this year's 59 red dot "Best of Best" prizes.

Just Mobile currently has 15 products on the market and a mounting pile of awards that includes more than 50 prizes from international design competitions and Apple-related media. Huang, who jokes that winning prizes is like collecting stamps, says that awards are an international language that attracts the attention of dealers and the media. Moving forward, Just Mobile will have to continue to take advantage of its top-notch design to consolidate its claim on the hearts and minds of Apple enthusiasts.

The Xtand and the Lounge stand, designed for the iPhone by Just Mobile.