My iPhone X screen cracked falling out of my car door onto concrete. 80 days of ownership in. AppleCare FTW. I’ve never had an iPhone display crack so easily.

I really would prefer not to pay extra hundreds of dollars just so that I don't need to choose the cheap option for repair in order to keep my warranty. But it is what it is.

I certainly understand. As a counter point and a bit of the (probably faulty) logic for why i choose no case + AppleCare: I’ve managed to break screens in cases in prior iphones. I’ve used local screen replacement shops and have been totally unimpressed with the quality of replacement i.e. I’m convinced i did not receive a remotely comparable screen to Apple’s OEM. I use my phone all day every day for work. I keep my phone in my jeans pocket and really prefer the no-case slim fit. Cheap cases tend to last me 6 months a pop before getting ratty looking, so i can either spend $50 on a nice Otterbox or other quality case or $15*4 for a new cheap case every so often.

Apple care, expensive though it may be, gets me a few mulligans while also providing broader coverage against other unknown damage or warranty issues, something even the nicest Otterbox style cases won’t afford me. It’s all a trade off. My preference is expensive but I historically break a screen every year, why not plan accordingly.

My glass screen didn’t crack but it did cause the OLED to break. https://imgur.com/a/mIq13

AppleCare Plus FTW, indeed.

I'm curious about the situations that cause you to drop your phone. When does it happen?

I don't want to be rude, I simply have a hard time understanding how careless people can be with their expensive devices. I'm not specifically accusing you of being careless, but I don't understand how people can drop their phones all the time.

My Moto X has been dropped one time, because I accidentally put it behind a stupid strap on my pants, rather than in the pocket. I cut that strap off afterwards, because that's just a really shitty idea to put a strap right on front of a pocket.

I would expect someone with your train of thought to especially want to buy a case. I'm curious why you take the risk? There are circumstances beyond your control and ability to predict sometimes. Ever mind your own business on the street, and then people in a rush violently crash into you? In order to break your fall, you have to let go of your phone and it falls, and those who made you fall are long gone? Yeah, it hasn't happened to me either. The point is that there are situations you can't predict, and besides that, you can't always be perfect either. I'm certainly not claiming to be perfect, hence the case.

To be blunt, I have functional fingers and situational awareness. I actually hold on to my phone, and if I need to look at it, I don't stand around randomly in the middle of a path where people need to move through. If I don't think I can use my phone safely, I wait.

That probably sounds a little bit sanctimonious, but it's the truth.

I have broken exactly one phone in my entire phone-owning life (since 2002), I've had 6 phones during this time, 4 feature phones and 2 smartphones. So one accident in 16 years, and that was a Sony Ericsson Elm. It was actually what pushed me to finally get a smartphone, so maybe it was a net positive :-)

I've had zero accidents in my entire phone-owning life since 2004, including 3 smartphones. I still prefer the safety of cases. To me, you don't sound sanctimonious, you sound arrogant and risk-seeking. To each their own, I guess. I think cases are worth it and don't care about any of the alleged negatives. Others think differently.

If you knew me, you wouldn't call me risk-seeking, at least not in any large capacity.

Arrogant maybe, but that's because I'm usually right about most things ;-)

Every time I've smashed my screen is when alcohol is in play.

But I can't help but feel like people make it out to be a bigger deal than it is... you can get it fixed third-party for pretty cheap.