Cases are great because everyone can get one that matches their risk level and frequency of drops.
Having a sacrificial outer layer that I can replace for $10 is also preferable to letting the $1000 phone take the damage.
Having a sacrificial outer layer that I can replace for $10 is also preferable to letting the $1000 phone take the damage.
I went caseless once since I didn't realize my case would arrive a week after I bought the phone.
The phone was slippery (couldn't temporarily rest it on my knee), and I found myself inspecting the restaurant/bar table any time I put the phone down after that one night I placed it right into a puddle of beer condensation and some mysterious food that got in the mic on the back of the phone and grossed me out.
The phone could be indestructible to drops and it still wouldn't solve those issues.
A $1k phone SHOULD NOT be a frictionless glass prism. It should not skate away from you ob smooth surfaces. It should not be destroyed by falling 3 inches onto a hard surface. It should have some durability inherent to it.
But instead apple spends billions of dollars making phones even more fragile and it's everyone's problem. We now have to spin up factories processing plastic into custom cases, and throw out all the old plastic cases and the older, more functional phones.
The argument is that phones could (and should) be inherently more robust and durable all on their own. It should not be a hard requirement for you to go out and buy your own case just for the phone to survive any level of daily use.
If they made phones out of plastic instead of glass, this wouldn't be an issue. Plastic backed phones almost always have a texture and when they don't even smooth plastic offers more friction. Plastic phones don't slide away like they're on ice. They don't shatter like my Note 10 did when it slid out of my pocket two inches to the ground. They also don't usually self destruct when you repair them.
The caseless argument isn't that cases suck, it's that we MUST use cases because phones intentionally suck. A phone is not a functional object, it's artistic ego masturbation.
It's a cheap sacrificial shell that adds utility. My examples were non-slip and grime from a public table. Maybe add scratches and impact damage in there too because every material is susceptible to that, and avoiding them helps me resell it.
There's no way to build that into a phone. I don't want rubber non-slip bumpers on my phone or a built-in clawed up plastic shell when I can have them in a swappable shell.
But 99% of people won't like the solution where this has to work out of the box
Every moderately "needs impact resistance" in the prosumer/professional sector either comes with a case, or has a "builtin" case, making it thicker/heavier. Just search for 'Cat mobile phones'
A grain of sand will scratch most metals and most glass surfaces, even hardened ones. If Apple managed to make this more resistant props to them, but it is not infallible
Vandalism resistant electronics are thick and have glass/polycarbonate/acrylic combinations that don't look good for the most part but will take a baseball bat like a champ
The Air I might consider putting a bumper case on since its thinness offsets the bulk increase, but it's specifically made to be resilient to drops so it's a coin toss even with that.
I barely drop my phone though, it happens maybe twice a year, usually on carpet. In the last decade my phones might've had a run-in with concrete or pavement 2-3 times, tops.
That's why I use an aramid fiber case from AliExpress. It's paper-thin, but has saved my phone from more drops than can remember. I used to go caseless, but since trying out aramid I don't see any practical benefit to caselessness.
Before that, I was using this one from Thinborne: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0CHLF8FD7. For all intents and purposes, they're functionally identical. I slightly preferred the style of the AliExpress one (camera glass cover + no logo), but the main reason I went for AliExpress when I needed a replacement was that it was half the price of the Thinborne. (The AliExpress one has since gone up ~$10, but the Thinborne one doesn't appear to be available at all anymore.)
Even for one year that's more than I'd spend to avoid using a phone case, and if I keep it for five years again that's $700.
There are other benefits to AppleCare (a case doesn't cover theft or loss) but I'm not very worried about any of them.
I don't see what's the big deal honestly
Some people just seem to like making things harder on themselves
Meanwhile if I drop my phone (which I'm very careful, so it was probably once or twice and not from too high) it's really nbd
For my 17 Pro I got a case with a kickstand. If the kickstand breaks off I get a new $16 case. If it was built into the phone I’d possibly need a new backplate depending on the damage. Probably not $16 to fix. A built in kick stand would certainly become a love it or hate it feature based on how people use the thing.
And there are people out there who are going to be huge fans of the Flower Power iMac. They can get just such a case and Apple doesn’t have to take the loss on that given 2025 design aesthetic .
I really wonder, seems like maybe, and might be worth looking into. If so, that would be fantastic and would make the case round to 2 orders of magnitude less costly than the device, instead of just 1.