It's not bad per se, but it looks like someone designed the cover, and someone else designed the phone, and they never tested them together, or just didn't care.

Again, this is not technically bad, but if you flaunt having a "staggering attention to detail" this is a sort of slap in the face of credibility.

Having them design a larger hole to encompass the "iPhone" logo (even while still half-covering the babble below) would have, instead, sent a very clear "we cared" message to users.

"hon" also is an informal diminutive for "honey".

It's very sloppy. Especially for Apple.

Eh. Apple has always been phoning in their accessories. They were never particularly good. I don’t see this as indicative of anything, it's just Apple being sloppy as they always are with these kinds of things.

Where it counts Apple does not typically exhibit this behaviour, as evidenced by both new iPhones.

I don't agree. Most of Apple's accessories are extremely stylish and complement their hardware: iPad smart cover, keyboards, mouses, chargers, ear buds, and monitors. I think the iPad smart cover alone demonstrates that Apple has the capability to make cases/covers for their mobile devices that are both functional and stylish. What accessories, besides the iPhone case discussed here, do you think Apple has made that are sloppy?

One word: antennagate.

Antennagate was a myth. They didn't change anything about the antenna, as far as I know, yet somehow the whole problem just disappeared.

And still they released a phone with antenna issues. People complained just as they are now. Apple did something relatively rare and issued a "mea cuppa" in the form of a free case. Life went on.

My point was that controversies like these design hiccups, the shape of the case, etc. are not new to Apple.

In some ways the design issues are significantly less severe since they can be corrected without new hardware.

You keep implying Apple released a phone with legitimate antenna issues. My understanding is this has been pretty much shown to be false. Apple was responding to a media shitstorm and Jobs said the issue was "overblown." In other words, it was probably an extremely rare, if not completely non-existent, issue but was magnified due to the fact that it happened to a well known blogger.

Brian Klug of Anandtech disagrees with you:

https://mobile.twitter.com/nerdtalker/status/380217872380739...