Smartphone Cases Kill Smartphone Lust

Reading Time: 5 minutes.

Imagine this. It’s Fall, 2019. New iPhone day. You get the package you’ve been waiting all day for. Smiling, you tear through it, getting to the iPhone inside. You peel back the plastic film on the screen, that inexplicably satisfying sound and texture. You hold your iPhone in your hand, admiring the design. Then you polish your grubby fingerprints off of it, cram it in a case, and turn your plastic covered $1,000+ piece of tech on.

One of those things is not like the other. One of those things sucks.

I’m not referring to peeling off the film. Everyone loves that part. I’m referring to shoving your shiny brand new phone into an overpriced piece of molded plastic. It instantly removes the wonder of a new phone, making it look and feel similar to your old one. That case makes the bezels larger. It feels cheaper than glass and steel. It’s there to protect your phone, yet it takes away all of the joy of a new phone.

Perhaps this is the problem Apple faces. The iPhone hasn’t been overwhelmingly exciting, but certainly people would be more enthusiastic about their phones if they didn’t have to shove them into plastic cases. Once upon a time, we didn’t have to do this. Phones were sturdier. They were smaller, had more padding, distributed weight around the screen, and had far less glass. They were built just a little bit tougher. Perhaps that’s why the joy of a new phone and the excitement of a new device is gone. Now fragile designs force us to use bulky cases. It’s killing our passion for tech.

Smartphones Are Too Expensive

Let’s just get this out of the way now. Phones are too expensive. They’ve gone up in price while subsidies have just about disappeared. As such, people focus heavily on trade-in value. They need to get as much of their investment back. This means using a case to keep our phones flawless.

Let’s think about the cost of a new iPhone. The most popular new model is the iPhone XS Max right now. It starts at $1,149. However, the model you should get, the 256GB model, is $1,249. Add a case. Let’s say you’re vegetarian and you don’t go for Apple’s leather case. You’ve saved $10! That’ll be $39, please. Now, you have AirPods already, right? No? Okay, let’s save money and go with the headphone adapter dongle, $9. Grand total: $1,297, plus tax.

$1,300 for something that will give you joy for a few seconds before you slap a case on it because you can’t afford a new one without trading it in.

You can’t trade in the iPhone XS, iPhone XS Max, or iPhone XR with Apple yet. However, Gazelle is accepting these newer phones. The $1,300 iPhone? You’ll get $710 for it. Brand new. That price will drop when the next iPhone comes out. You’re out $600 or more. Furthermore, you’ll have a case that you can just throw away. Even if the next iPhone looks like the old one, Apple will likely make a subtle change that’ll make your case useless, as they’ve done for the iPhone XS. It’ll rot in a landfill.

Was it worth it?

Smartphones Are Too Fragile

So, you only want to be out $600 this year. That means your phone has to be in perfect shape when you trade it in. There’s only one way to do that. You have to either have Spider-Man-like grip and reactions and carry it around in silk-lined pockets, or you have to get a case. Since radioactive spiders are hard to come by (at least the ones that give you spider genes instead of cancer), chances are, you’re buying a case.

You could go case-less, but we all know how that’s going to end up. Your phone will break. It just will. Something dumb will happen, and your phone will fall the short distance from your hand to the ground. It will shatter.

If the screen breaks on an iPhone, it’s not an extremely difficult repair. However, if the more fragile back glass breaks, you’re in for a world of hurt. The entire frame needs to be replaced. You’ll be out hundreds of dollars.

A Better Way

Smartphones don’t have to be this way. Sure, Essential Phone was started by a former Google employee, serial sexual harasser and possible sex trafficker, Andy Rubin, but let’s consider the phone his company built for a second. The Essential Phone had faulty software, but the hardware was gorgeous, solved the notch problem with only a tiny teardrop notch (before the iPhone had a notch), and had a nearly unbreakable body.

The Essential Phone used titanium and ceramic. Ceramic is more durable than glass, yet still allows wireless charging. Titanium is tougher than steel, giving the body of the phone the rigidity it needs to protect the glass. The end result? A phone that’s incredibly strong. Just look at the extremes CNet had to go through to try to break it!

If the iPhone was as tough as an Essential Phone, it would be easy to spend the money on. You could carry it around without a case, admire its beauty, and know it’s safe. Instead, we’re left treating our phones like a middle school egg drop science project. We’re coming up with solutions like cases, bumpers, and even drop-detecting spring-loaded bumpers.

Cases Aren’t Unique

I’m a bad vegetarian. Well, pescatarian. Well, usually pescatarian. I guess what I’m saying is, I have a leather iPhone case even though I shouldn’t. It feels significantly worse then my previous iPhone X leather case, but it’s still a leather case. It doesn’t feel like much of an improvement over my iPhone X. Even the unnecessarily large screen doesn’t really make my iPhone feel much different than an iPhone 6.

A new phone should feel new. It should feel unique. A unique design can inspire brand loyalty, a sense that you’re discovering something new. Instead, no matter what brand we buy, no matter what operating system it runs, we just jam these phones into the same silicone, plastic, or leather. Sometimes there’s an aluminum bumper in there, but, for the most part, we’re left with the same boring cases with little changes between them. That’s why I go into such great detail in my case reviews. I have to, there’s so little that differentiate these cases, but our phones are so drastically changed by what we wrap them with.

With all those case reviews, you might think I’m obsessed with smartphone cases. The truth is, I’m not. I’m just unsatisfied with every case I’ve ever used. The only case-like accessory I’ve really enjoyed has been the Loop smartphone strap. Unfortunately, I can’t even use my favorite iPhone case with that.

Cases, aren’t unique. Frankly, they’re a little boring. They’re bland and repetitive. No matter what Apple or Samsung or LG does, their phones will always be wrapped in the same boring plastic. Their designs won’t see the light of day. As such, they won’t inspire joy in their users.

Phones Are Boring

Cases are definitely making phones less exciting. It’s part of the reason why we’re less willing to buy new phones, why people don’t get excited about phones anymore, and why brand loyalty is less common. We’ve taken the branding out of the smartphone. Apple’s power was all in its brand. Now it doesn’t even have that.

However, we can’t ignore the fact that smartphones are boring. They all have similar performance specs now, similar screen sizes, and even similar cameras. Apple’s killer feature is still its App Store. Apple wants it to be the camera and Face ID, but these things aren’t really drawing in a crowd. No one likes the notch. People want durable phones with long lasting batteries. They want phones they can fit in a pocket with all the features of a phone that requires men’s jeans or a purse. No company is giving us those things. Increasingly, people want to blur the line between their lives and their tech. True augmented reality. Wearables that make tech seamless with our lives. We’re not there yet, not even close. A decade ago, Apple launched the iPhone 3G. A faster smartphone, Face ID, better camera, thinner body, and absurd screen size, and here we are. It’s no different. It’s not even that much better. A decade of progress, giving us things we didn’t ask for.

Smartphones are certainly in decline. Or, rather, ignoring what customers want from their tech has made smartphones dull. However, wrapping our smartphones in the same plastic, rubber, silicone, and aluminum? That has stolen what little wonder smartphones had left. Smartphones are getting boring. Cases are the final nail in the smartphone’s coffin.