> What else do we keep in a protective case 24/7, even when we're using it?

I keep my textbooks wrapped in book covers made from grocery bags. I keep my feet in protective shoes most of the time, especially if it's cold or raining outside. I'd put a car cover over my car, if it wasn't a rusty pile of junk (i.e., a Chrysler).

That's ridiculous. Book covers are imposed on users (students) who personally gain nothing by using them by an authority (the school system) that cares nothing for their inconvenience. The human body is notoriously easy to improve on, and nobody covers their cars except people with expensive sports cars they love more than their wives. Next.

You are changing your stance now. A lot of iPhones are kept in a case? Sure (and not even a huge amount: here (UK) I see around 20% with a cases and 80% without... maybe in the USA is the opposite).

Is the fact that they use a case evidence that the iPhone is fragile? This is where you are trolling. As I pointed out we use a lot of cases for a lot of situations.

I never understood why people get so angry when their car get scratched (isn't that what the car "shell" is for? Better a scratch on the wall than on on the engine!) but people do. So why could they not be keeping their phones in a protective case to avoid scratches? Or (just to give you another alternative) to clip it to the side? Or to personalise it (phones are very personal items, much more so than computers, for example).

So yeah: is it ironic that the iPhone is considered beautiful and yet people put it in a case? Sure. Is it an indication that it is fragile? Nope.

Apple themselves noted the ubiquity of cases when they downplayed the antenna problem on the iPhone 4, so I'm surprised to hear that there's anywhere in the world where a majority of people don't use them. Here in the U.S. (Austin, Texas, and I think Texas in general) it's the opposite, 80% in cases or even more. I almost never see a naked iPhone and can't think of a single person I know who carries one. I carried my iPhone without a case at first and broke two, personally, before I caved in and started using a case.

I didn't think it was controversial that it's an extremely fragile phone. There's a cottage industry of people who repair broken screens, and there are repair kits available from several different sources for every model of iPhone. In my experience, if you drop it without a case onto a hard surface, you have about even odds of breaking it. I don't remember exactly, but my first one broke the second or third time I dropped it. (I wasn't careful with it at all.) I was so careful with my second iPhone (which pissed me off in itself that I had to baby a phone that way) and managed to avoid dropping it for months, but the very first time I did, it broke. My third has been in its case almost constantly since I bought it, but I did drop it without the case once, and it didn't break. So I had two breaks in four or five hard drops (mostly chest level onto concrete or blacktop,) versus zero breaks in innumerable drops for my previous phones.

Just putting a case on it solves the problem completely, but that brings me back to my original point: if the vast majority of users use it with the case (and that's certainly true here) then it doesn't make any sense to judge it by its size and aesthetics without the case. Plus, for all the users that resort to a case, Apple did not completely control the phone's aesthetics and user experience, which isn't necessarily a bad thing but is certainly noteworthy since it is contrary to conventional wisdom about Apple and the iPhone.

So why could they not be keeping their phones in a protective case to avoid scratches?

I can't speak for anyone else, but that doesn't make any sense to me at all. The case will get scratches, and you'll still have a scratched-up-looking phone. My case has a rubber ridge around the screen that was apparently munched on by some kind of insect last time I went backpacking. That's just the way things get when you use them. If people want a pristine-looking phone, they'll have to buy a new case every few months.

In general, I see almost all iPhone owners using cases, and with other cell phones, I see a clear minority using cases, mostly girls with decorative cases or (like you mentioned) IT geeks who like to clip them to their utility belts. From that I conclude that most iPhone users who keep their iPhone in a case would not do so if they had a different phone, and would prefer not to use a case with their iPhone, but feel compelled to do so for practical reasons.