In The Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul, Douglas Adams wrote: “It can hardly be a coincidence that no language on Earth has ever produced the expression ‘as pretty as an airport’.” Similarly, I remain unsurprised no famous idiom exists along the lines of ‘as amazing as an Apple iPhone case’. That would be weird, for one. Also: inaccurate. And I say that as someone who currently owns at least 95% of an Apple iPhone case – and who has 100% conviction that I’ll never buy another.
This isn’t some kind of anti-Apple tirade, note. Hit pieces on the fruit company are sprinkled about the internet like angry confetti. But I mostly like Apple gear and recommend an awful lot of it. Need a decent new tablet? Get an iPad. Well, unless by ‘decent’, you really mean ‘a dirt-cheap slate for my kid to hurl about the house’, in which case make do with whatever Amazon is currently selling. Similarly, many Macs are best-in-class for personal computing.
Even when Apple might not look the best on paper, its products often impress – such as the iPhone. Sure, there are cheaper Android blowers with better specs. But Apple’s app ecosystem – despite the ‘best’ efforts of App Store review – remains head and shoulders above the competition. Moreover, iPhones are championed for their longevity. Which makes it a pity the same can’t be said for the cases you slap them in.
Case study
I fortunately avoided FineWoven cases entirely. You may recall Apple replaced leather with a fancy new sci-fi material, but detractors claimed it became tatty remarkably quickly. Often in videos where they demonstrated this by viciously attacking their cases with fingernails, keys and packs of ravenous wolves, simultaneously ignoring the fact that leather also wears. A few less excitable commentators later said their cases were still fine actually after six months, thank you, but by then FineWoven’s reputation was firmly in the trash. The reality was somewhere in the middle. FineWoven wasn’t terrible, but it wasn’t great either.
For the iPhone 16, Apple ditched FineWoven and nudged folks towards swanky new silicon numbers. I bought one. For fifty whole English pounds – about 60 Euros or 70 American dollaroonies. Because I’m a massive idiot who can’t resist anything with an Apple logo stamped on it? Not quite. This purchase was down to Camera Control. Apple had introduced a new button but case manufacturers hedged their bets, because they had no advanced warning about how it worked – only where it was located.
At the time, iPhone cases tended to look like someone had hacked a chunk away with a scalpel. I wanted one that protected all around the edge of the phone, which meant Apple’s silicon case or wrapping my entire phone in bubble wrap. The latter was tempting. (Who doesn’t love bubble wrap?) But it’s a mite inconvenient when you need to use the phone.
Worst-case scenario
A few weeks ago, though, my silicon case started falling to pieces. Little bits flaked off. And then bigger bits. That didn’t feel great for a relatively premium case that cost what it did. And given all the griping about FineWoven, I got a bit grumpy that its replacement also lacked longevity.
To be fair, it’s not like my case failed after a few months (although my wife’s did). It’s been on my iPhone every day since I bought it back in November 2024. But because I work from home, my iPhone actually spends most of its life lurking on a desk, not getting thrown about the place. Perhaps the silicon case decided it couldn’t take any more abject boredom and was sick of the same four walls. Or maybe this was a subtle way of Apple saying, “Heyyyyy. Don’t worry about a new case, because a new iPhone Pro will arrive in weeks!”
Either way, it’s dead. It’s an ex-iPhone case. So I replaced it with a Spigen one that was one-third of the price and will probably last twice as long, like others I’ve bought from that brand. And it even deftly deals with Camera Control.
Let’s hope Apple doesn’t spring another button-based surprise on everyone this September, then. Or, you know, at least starts making longer-lasting cases.
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