Never once used a case in 12+ yrs of iphone ownership and only cracked a screen once. Think there are a lot of people out there like me. Many people are way too anal about an every day utilitarian device.

For me, i use a case because the damn phones are slippery as hell.

Yeah when my last phone case broke I tried carrying it nude and that was what immediately struck me. So I bought some adhesive rubber knurl stickers for the edges but they wouldn't stay on because my Pixel 7 has a curved edge - would probably work well on a phone with a flat edge.

I stuck on a MagSafe metal sticker thing on the back and that little bit of greebling makes me feel a bit better holding it.

Pixel 9 is so extremely slippery that one can't help but think they designed it to need a case. I never bought a case prior to Pixel 9 but the thing is like a wet bar of soap.

Yeah I'll never understand how anyone can use an iPhone without it being in a case, it's just not practical or comfortable to hold without a case adding grip.

Well, I'm in the exact opposite category - I don't get why people use cases.

Surely its obvious - grip and protection. Fairly well established that they're slippy, and dropping them means gouges being taken out of the frame, or if you're really unlucky, cracked glass.

Same here. Silicon cases or those made from the material that looks like pressed leather dust were always a life saver for me

My nexus 4 had rubberized sides and it felt so nice in the hand. Been downhill ever since.

Same, I get random “raw dogging it” comments from strangers much more often than I drop my phone even since having kids. Ironically via raw dogging it.

How often do you drop your phone on the ground? For me it’s probably once a week.

Pre-kids maybe twice a year. Post-kids maybe twice a month.

that is wild. are you just very clumsy? i drop mine maybe once a year.

This is a characteristic mostly of the clothes people wear. I wear athletic shorts often and my phone slides out of those pockets all the time.

> that is wild. are you just very clumsy? i drop mine maybe once a year.

"Wild" seems like a stretch. I feel like it shouldn't be too hard to believe that some people drop their phones occasionally, and it's a reasonable concern when it's likely to be with you everywhere you go.

Hearing someone drops their phone on average 50 times more often than i do i find wild. Good points in the other comments though as I have never used cases on phones before so i'm likely subconsciously more careful with them. Also typically in slim fit jeans pockets which are nearly impossible to accidentally drop out of.

My SE is so hilariously slippery it falls off of flat surfaces

Those reasons do seem likely to lend themselves toward infrequent droppage.

> Hearing someone drops their phone on average 50 times more often than i do i find wild

;) wait till you hear someone's completely incomprehensible ADHD story

Once I was getting off my jeans to do the Royal Squat and they decided to barf my phone. It fell like from 30 cm high, hit the ground exactly on the corner. Screen cracked edge to edge.

Not sure. I rarely fall when climbing rocks, so I’m not a total butterfingers. I often take out my phone to use as a flashlight, angle mirror etc and leave it balanced precarious places. Never had a phone break in probably hundreds of ground falls (always using a case). Since it’s never broken, I don’t expend effort to prevent it from falling.

Edit: sibling comment is correct, sketchy pockets of athletic shorts are a major offender. Actually it bothers me way more when my car keys fall out of those.

It sounds crazy, but it turns out the finish on the phone makes a huge difference.

I never used a case until I got a Galaxy S9; that phone was like a greased eel. Went from dropping my phone zero times in 8 years to 5 times in one week.

Once a year seems a lot more wild. I drop my phone at least once on most days.

I'd say approximately once a year. I have been using a case with my current one (a 15 Pro), but didn't with any of my previous ones, back to the iPhone 3G. I've broken one screen.

The last phone I dropped was an iPhone 3G. People wonder why I don’t like to use a case.

I'm the same way but that makes the bulge even more annoying. They're designing it to put a case on it.

The thickness should be from the front to the back of the camera lens, not to the thinnest point they can find.

Same, and I've never had to replace a phone or screen once... I wouldn't need two hands to count the number of times I've even had a scare.

People need to get a grip. ;)

Same here, ditched cases a few years ago and never been happier. It’s a tool, not an heirloom.

I bought a new pixel, bought a case that had slow shipping. Only a week, what could go wrong? I dropped it flat on the screen on a tile floor.

Cases are dirt cheap, if you're paying over $30 for one you're probably overpaying. The expected value of a screen repair, not only the cost but your time makes it a no-brainer.

Same. Cases are like putting shoes on a dog. You can do that, but it looks dumb and the dog will probably be fine without them.

Unless you live in somewhere like Phoenix, Arizona. While look dumb you probably don't want your dog to burn its paws.

I think you might be an outlier. My own anecdote is that literally everyone I know who doesn't use a case (albeit a small number of people) has cracked their phone at some point while I've known them.

The case is part of the utilitarianism. I need to attach my phone to a bike mount. I use a Peak Design case that has a locking attachment point in the centre to securely fasten the phone onto the handlebars.

I would gladly ditch the case if Apple had a strong mounting system integrated into the phone (MagSafe has nowhere near the resistance to shear forces sufficient to hold a phone over bumps on a bike.)

I suppose I am looking for the phone equivalent of a camera thumbscrew mount. If Apple iterated on MagSafe to include an actual mechanical fixture as part of the attachment, I would buy that phone right away so I can avoid using these crappy pieces of rubber/plastic that degrade so much more quickly in appearance than the phone frame rails.

I think a lot of people just drop stuff more than you do.

I definitely drop stuff more than GP does. It sucks.

My phone case has saved my phone many times.

Heck, my bike helmet has saved my head at least 3 times.

> My phone case has saved my phone many times.

Survivorship bias /s How do you know it wouldn't have survived without case? I drop my phone on nearly daily basis and since 2007 only cracked one iPhone screen.

Very true, actually, you're right! But given that my screen has cracked once while I was using a case, I can't imagine it would be better without a case.

I did do cosmetic damage to the non-screen parts of some phones while not using a case, though.

I'm convinced that "area" where screen breaks without a case, but doesn't break with a case is very narrow. In my mind, the main reasons to have a case: personalize, rugged cases for appropriate environment (car shops, construction sites), improve grip in certain "phone shape" + hand size combinations.

> I did do cosmetic damage to the non-screen parts of some phones while not using a case, though.

I don't care about those for various reasons.

I wonder if some of this is also a generational thing? I'm in my mid-late-40s and grew up in a world where electronics were pretty fragile (and water basically was a death sentence). Heck, even getting DOA hardware wasn't so uncommon as to be surprising when it happened.

The idea of letting my phone drop unprotected (or getting it wet like I see some people do) is horrible.

You did forget one big use case for cases: money laundering. There's no way all the physical stores and kiosks that only sell cases are actually making money...

Well, I'm in my mid-30s, if it helps. I remember my first 5 phones would split into multiple pieces with sim always being ejected when dropped. They still would work after put back together, tho.

It's really more "I got extended warranty, and I'm not afraid to use". I live in LA, so I'm never too far from the nearest store I can replace mine. All data important backed up. Dropping a phone for me will result at most in a minor-to-medium annoyance.

I only fear of getting the phone too wet because battery disconnect is practically impossible today.

Yeah, super thin phones that require bulky cases have never made sense to me. Why not make tough phones that don't require a case?

Because if the case gets damaged you can easily replace it.

People would still put a case on a bulky phone to protect resale or trade in value.

A super thin phone doesn't require a super bulky case, it requires just as much case as a person would normally use, resulting in a smaller overall profile.

I'd probably still go pro because I care more about the camera than the size.

They're sort of doing that with Ceramic Shield, and the new bumper case for the Air.

I don’t get the idea of putting glass on the back of this phone. Wouldn’t it make more sense to just have metal there so there are less things to crack?

Metal interferes with wireless charging.

Another alternative is hard plastic, but it doesn't "feel premium"

I think the reality is that your phone will always encounter something that can damage it (unless it's made out of diamond), and a case lets you easily replace the damaged part.

Just subjectively, I remember having a super scratched iPod and it just felt kind of ratty every time you looked at it. Meanwhile, a phone in a leather case gets kind of a patina that improves with age. It is kind of sad though, I got a really pretty blue iPhone and you wouldn't even know it because it's completely covered by a case.

I'd rather see phones that aren't perfectly flat but instead have proper built-in mounting things. Give me some screw holes to attach a set of 4 bumpers to the corners, and a camera mount thread hole in the bottom.

Honestly, it sounds really compelling to me. I do a lot of stuff outside - search and rescue, climbing, etc, and I need a rugged case for that, but having a thin, light phone when I'm at home or doing something with less chance to damage the phone is pretty nice, so thin phone + case is the best of both worlds.

> you're still going to put it in a fat case to protect the camera.

But a thinner phone still means the end result is thinner in a case.

I didn't understand the appeal of thin phones until I used them in cases.

Average thickness phone + case = bulky phone.

Thin phone + case = normal thickness phone.

That's what makes them great. It's normal thickness with all the protection.

I've only broken the iPhone camera once in more than a decade of using iPhones. And that's when I was in IKEA and a box of unassembled furniture fell onto it.

If you really want protection, the screen is still more fragile than the camera.

You escaped the infinite IKEA?

iPhone 13 mini pro was the best phone they ever made.

There was never a "Pro" version of it. I have the Mini (13). I plan to ride it into the sunset.

I'm going with the iPhone 5.

I’d go with the 5S - the 5 with the first 64-bit phone CPU and some other improvements (especially TouchID). In black, of course. (I think I still have one somewhere.)

> I agree with you, you're still going to put it in a fat case to protect the camera.

The Apple cases aren't flat on the back. They have a rim around the camera bump (and they create a rim around the front of the phone, too). The rear rim is slightly taller than the lens bezels (not sure if I used the right word there), so they don't touch the surface the phone rests on. I place my phone+case on the desk face-down because the camera bump and the wobble it creates when resting the phone back down triggers some minor irritation for me. The slight rim around the front of the phone keeps the screen from touching the surface. All of this would be nicer if the phone were flat across the back.

The metal case and toughened glass mean I don't really need the case most the time. I once dropped an older model onto a concrete floor such that it landed on a corner, shattering the screen, so I'm more risk averse with them now.