I'm guessing phone cases are still pretty much required if you drop your phone once or twice a month onto cement/asphalt/marble/etc from pocket height.
I would be really curious to hear the internal debate at Apple wrt design tradeoffs + durability. E.g. how much of the iPhone design is only possible because Apple is assuming the average person will have a case on their phone.
I wouldn't be surprised if the typical consumer would be more impressed by "No Case Required iPhone" compared to "Skinniest and lightest iPhone yet!".
…you don’t. I don’t. My phone is scratched here and there, but not in a way that I notice. I used to defend this with my purchasing of insurance, but frankly, I crack the screen now maybe once every 2+ years.
> Apple is assuming the average person will have a case on their phone
I think it is fair to assume that irrespective of the design, most people will case their phones. Leaning into that is fine as long as the phone is still functional without a case. (Which, again, every iPhone in the last decade has been.)
Agreed they're functional without a case.
Whether it's functional after dropping it face down on the glass onto cement/marble is another question!
I'm not too concerned with cosmetic scratches. The main issue is the screen shattering. And the back of the phone shattering in older models where the back was glass.
Confirming it is. Source: clumsy as hell.
The glass is sturdier and more scratch resistant than it was ten years ago, when I was smashing an iPhone screen a couple times a year with a case.
For my phones, I use the cheapest most-featureless blackest thinnest TPU cases I can get my hands on.
They tend to [just barely] cover the edges of the glass screen, they're very inexpensive. They never seem to wear out in any appreciable way.
So far, zero broken screens in the ~16 years I've been carrying these pocket computers absolutely everywhere...and I drop them about as often as anyone else does, I suppose.
If the screen were reasonably scratch + shatter proof, I think most people wouldn't feel the need to wear a case.
Last time I broke the front screen of a phone was an HTC Evo.
So it seems like the screens are not easily broken anymore. Though that event did lead to me using a case on my next phone just to avoid chancing cosmetic damage on it.
Here's a patent for the idea which just expired this year: https://patents.google.com/patent/US7059182B1/
Apple also patented some versions of this, although I think not as nice as the 2005 one: https://patents.google.com/patent/US9571150B2
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sudden_Motion_Sensor
Though I don't recall iPods having that feature, nor can I find anything online supporting that claim.
Lenovo/IBM have a Free Fall Sensor in the laptop.
It is a bit bigger with protective shell around it is bulky, but withstood all the drops that a typical phone would break. There is some flaring around the screen and camera that it prevents most of scratches. The back has some sort of hard rubber but it held up well.
I've only had to replace the screen protector within 3 years as the scuffs and marks made it difficult to see in well-lit environment.
I mean... yeah? What consumer tech is that resilient? Maybe put a lanyard on the your phone and attach it to your belt, I mean..
They could make a toughbook style phone for people with such habits, but engineering a mainstream device for such resiliency is going to be overkill for most users and cause a lot of tradeoffs in size/cost/features.
Because the iPhone 15 pro was significantly lighter than previous pro models, I wanted to avoid a case to get the most out of this improvement. However, I wouldn’t have even experimented with not using a case if it weren’t for the applecare+ plans that are reasonable. I’ve been surprised by the durability to the extent that I should probably discontinue the applecare+ plan.
The aluminum models might not be as durable. Compared to phones 20 or even 30 years ago that didn’t need a case, I suppose a significant difference is the density as much as the total weight or the hardness of the materials.
But modern smartphones are anything like that, and people do like the more premium materials on the outside (and it sort of makes sense - if you have a device that you are using 24/7, it might as well "feel" more premium), so I don't think it's a fair comparison
I tried rocking no case and broke the screen which isn’t a huge deal but required attention, downtime, and the phone didn’t work the same way after repair.
Having a sacrificial outer layer that I can replace for $10 is also preferable to letting the $1000 phone take the damage.
I don't see what's the big deal honestly
Some people just seem to like making things harder on themselves
Meanwhile if I drop my phone (which I'm very careful, so it was probably once or twice and not from too high) it's really nbd
I went caseless once since I didn't realize my case would arrive a week after I bought the phone.
The phone was slippery (couldn't temporarily rest it on my knee), and I found myself inspecting the restaurant/bar table any time I put the phone down after that one night I placed it right into a puddle of beer condensation and some mysterious food that got in the mic on the back of the phone and grossed me out.
The phone could be indestructible to drops and it still wouldn't solve those issues.
The Air I might consider putting a bumper case on since its thinness offsets the bulk increase, but it's specifically made to be resilient to drops so it's a coin toss even with that.
I barely drop my phone though, it happens maybe twice a year, usually on carpet. In the last decade my phones might've had a run-in with concrete or pavement 2-3 times, tops.
Even for one year that's more than I'd spend to avoid using a phone case, and if I keep it for five years again that's $700.
There are other benefits to AppleCare (a case doesn't cover theft or loss) but I'm not very worried about any of them.
That's why I use an aramid fiber case from AliExpress. It's paper-thin, but has saved my phone from more drops than can remember. I used to go caseless, but since trying out aramid I don't see any practical benefit to caselessness.
Before that, I was using this one from Thinborne: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0CHLF8FD7. For all intents and purposes, they're functionally identical. I slightly preferred the style of the AliExpress one (camera glass cover + no logo), but the main reason I went for AliExpress when I needed a replacement was that it was half the price of the Thinborne. (The AliExpress one has since gone up ~$10, but the Thinborne one doesn't appear to be available at all anymore.)
A $1k phone SHOULD NOT be a frictionless glass prism. It should not skate away from you ob smooth surfaces. It should not be destroyed by falling 3 inches onto a hard surface. It should have some durability inherent to it.
But instead apple spends billions of dollars making phones even more fragile and it's everyone's problem. We now have to spin up factories processing plastic into custom cases, and throw out all the old plastic cases and the older, more functional phones.
The argument is that phones could (and should) be inherently more robust and durable all on their own. It should not be a hard requirement for you to go out and buy your own case just for the phone to survive any level of daily use.
If they made phones out of plastic instead of glass, this wouldn't be an issue. Plastic backed phones almost always have a texture and when they don't even smooth plastic offers more friction. Plastic phones don't slide away like they're on ice. They don't shatter like my Note 10 did when it slid out of my pocket two inches to the ground. They also don't usually self destruct when you repair them.
The caseless argument isn't that cases suck, it's that we MUST use cases because phones intentionally suck. A phone is not a functional object, it's artistic ego masturbation.
It's a cheap sacrificial shell that adds utility. My examples were non-slip and grime from a public table. Maybe add scratches and impact damage in there too because every material is susceptible to that, and avoiding them helps me resell it.
There's no way to build that into a phone. I don't want rubber non-slip bumpers on my phone or a built-in clawed up plastic shell when I can have them in a swappable shell.
But 99% of people won't like the solution where this has to work out of the box
Every moderately "needs impact resistance" in the prosumer/professional sector either comes with a case, or has a "builtin" case, making it thicker/heavier. Just search for 'Cat mobile phones'
A grain of sand will scratch most metals and most glass surfaces, even hardened ones. If Apple managed to make this more resistant props to them, but it is not infallible
Vandalism resistant electronics are thick and have glass/polycarbonate/acrylic combinations that don't look good for the most part but will take a baseball bat like a champ
I really wonder, seems like maybe, and might be worth looking into. If so, that would be fantastic and would make the case round to 2 orders of magnitude less costly than the device, instead of just 1.
For my 17 Pro I got a case with a kickstand. If the kickstand breaks off I get a new $16 case. If it was built into the phone I’d possibly need a new backplate depending on the damage. Probably not $16 to fix. A built in kick stand would certainly become a love it or hate it feature based on how people use the thing.
And there are people out there who are going to be huge fans of the Flower Power iMac. They can get just such a case and Apple doesn’t have to take the loss on that given 2025 design aesthetic .
Do cases guarantee your screen won't break if you drop your phone? No. Do they dramatically diminish the likelihood of cracked glass in the most common scenario of phone falling on flat concrete? Absolutely.
Some of us are harder on our things than others...
I do like some cases for their design elements, I might use one to just further personalize my phone.
The point of a case is to avoid having to pay for those repairs.
I usually drop my phone 3-5 times a month. Inexpensive cases and screen protectors have saved me quite a lot of hassle.
Fewer repairs saves time, produces less waste, and preserves more of the resale value.
Almost the same here. We got new identical phones in 2023 for a good deal because they were made in 2022.
She breaks hers fairly regularly and myself not at all so far.
I guess they are considered obsolete already because in our complex there was apparently someone operating a cellphone shop who was discarding a couple dozen assorted brand new cases for this exact phone!
Fancy ones, tough ones, light ones, some with kickstands, quite a variety.
None of which I could abide for very long. She loves the most fashionable one.
Then one day I found something I could use that was made of a space-age fiber I have been long acquainted with, rayon.
It was an ankle sock, and it was not one of hers.
Pretty much useless by itself as footwear, so it existed for a time as orphan laundry before I tried it.
Uncased phone doesn't fall out when you handle it upside down, but slips out real easy when you want it to. Plus you can see who's calling through the fiber without having to remove it beforehand.
It surprised me that people seem to show more interest than they do for more fashionable alternatives that are not even footwear at all :)
deep scratches are trivial and drops will immediately lead to heavy dents. that being said the screen itself is incredibly tough so it will be usable.
before (stainless / titanium) you could go caseless without concern. the most i ever had happen was a little crack on the back
Maybe the new phones are better, but I was quite disappointed when I noticed how easy the paint came off. What's the point of a pretty phone if you're gonna need me to put a case around it?
If you're curious about just how durable the iPhone Air is, take a look at the latest Jerry Rig Everything video where it exceeded his typical scratch test resits and he was unable to bend it with his hands.
> Typical smartphone glass starts scratching at a level 6 on the Mohs scale of hardness, but Zack’s picks barely left marks even at 7. “Apple ruined my line,” he joked, noting that Corning’s new Ceramic Shield 2 is a big improvement over last year’s iPhone 16 lineup, even besting the Galaxy S25 Ultra’s Gorilla Armor 2, which showed visible scratches at a level 6 when it was put to the same test earlier this year.
and
> Using a crane scale in his garage, he applied direct pressure in the center of the iPhone Air until it finally gave way. The iPhone Air endured up to 216 pounds (~98kg) of force before its front glass finally cracked and the titanium frame flexed past the point of recovery. Surprisingly, the back glass came out unscathed, and the phone was still powered on and usable in the end.
https://www.notebookcheck.net/The-iPhone-Air-bends-in-JerryR...
Also, i find it nice that they decided to honor they allegiance pledge to the regime with an Orange model. It was a nice touch.
Sure I have some scratches on the screen, but so what? If the front or back glass shatter, it's $29 to fix.
I'm a person who tends to accidentally throw my phone around a lot, and don't use a case (cause the added bulk makes me throw it around even more). Often on ceramic tiles, often with added velocity from me walking or hitting it in the air while trying to catch it.
My iPhone 13 Pro still survived 3 years, and only had some scratches and bruises on its corners, but nothing broke (still in use, by someone else now). My iPhone 16 Pro after a year of that same treatment is almost unblemished (a small bruise on one of the corners).
These are, in practice, extremely resistant to damage.
Because of the above, I don't think there is anything (reasonable) smartphone manufacturers could do to make people feel like they shouldn't add one just in "case".
On average, I keep the same phone for 3-4 years (current phone is an iPhone 11, coming up on 6 years old).
I started using a silicone case with iPhone 6S as found it was slippy. Have a leather case for iPhone 15 Pro but considering going naked again.
(I walk a good deal and also bike with the phone in my pocket, so it's possible my phone gets above average wear in this department.)
You can buy a $400m yacht and still need buoys when you dock it.
Unless you want a phone that comes with a pre-installed rubber bumper around the outside, or we have some humanity altering discoveries in transparent materials science, you’re always going to have a case. Gravity and concrete are undefeated.
Sure, why not? If there's going to be a rubber bumper anyways, why wouldn't I want the manufacturer to ship it?
In 25+ years of carrying a naked mobile phone everywhere I've never broken one. My lifestyle theoretically exposes me to significantly greater risk of damage than the average person too. I view phones as semi-disposable devices, so I take no special care or precautions.
I am eternally baffled as to why people need cases on their phones. The observation that many people do seem to break them frequently isn't an explanation. I can't wrap my head around the degree of clumsiness and carelessness that would seem to be required to explain this phenomenon.
At some point, you have to conclude people don't actually care if they smash their phone based on how frequently they do it.
As I said, it's baffling.
Heck, even when I think I'm being careful (eg carrying a very full mug or glass), I'm liable to focus on what I'm doing to the point of messing it all up due to lack of awareness (eg keeping my glass nice and still until I bump my elbow into the door frame and spill some of my drink).
It also does not seem to be improving wit age.
The fact you’re baffled that accidents happen makes me question if you’re trolling or literally live in a bubble.
Have you considered that for other people phones are a significant financial investment?
I’m not regularly smashing my phone or especially careless with it, but in a year I’ve seen it take a dozen or so drops and I’m glad it had a case on it when it did.
How do you explain the contradiction of people who go through the pretense of protecting their phone then engaging in behavior that somehow smashes it regularly in a way that demonstrably cannot be explained by normal usage? There is an entire population of no-case-enjoyers who don't smash their phones despite the lack of extra protection.
If you’re going to include the pre smart phone era of mobile phones in the discussion, it would be nice to let people know
By the time the iPhone was revealed the Sonys at the time made Apples look pretty dumb by comparison.
Sony had regular ordinary quick-change batteries, at least their own Memory Sticks for removable storage before they ended up settling for SD cards, plus the essential USB connection in addition to bluetooth to connect you to your PC to at least use the PC OS to handle the file management of the phone.
And there was always the PC software suite for Sony owners so you could get your PC online before there were hotspots, and you could do texting and make calls from the PC, update the phone, install phone apps from the PC, etc. You could consider the phone a peripheral of the PC, or the PC a peripheral of the phone. And integration was supposed to continue getting better from there.
Like a normal smartphone way before the iPhone appeared, which the iPhone had none of the established hallmarks of smartness, except that it was on the internet. Plus it was locked down in annoying ways never before seen.
Jobs was pretty intense with his reality distortion efforts, he got people to believe until this day that smartphones didn't exist until he had success with it. What it really was was that established smartphones were about $500 and almost nobody was going to pay that so naturally they were not flying off the shelf any more than they ever had been. It was actually widely considered pretty stupid to pay that much for a phone at the time unless you were deeply in need of those connected features.
He convinced enough people that phones had never been so "smart" since there were so few having any experience with them. But why stop there? While he was at it he got his fans to pay almost $1000 too.
That's my go-to right there.
I'm old enough to where I won't be forgetting any time soon how excellent things can be without any phone at all, much less cellular. Land lines were usually too expensive for students but people weren't crying about doing without.
I do bring the flatphone with me regularly, just not most of the time, and only when I have a strong anticipation of wanting or even needing it.
In a restaurant I didn't even like pagers when they were a thing.
Pagers might have been anti-social with their piercing interruptions, but least they weren't as annoying to carry around as an oversized internet-connected device.
And definitely not as anti-social as a phone having Facebook with a human being strung along attached by the finger.
Just because you’ve never damaged a mobile phone, doesn’t mean that no-one else has. Mistakes happen, and modern mobile phones are fragile and dense.
Thickness? There are a lot of thin cases that will do the job.
Heavy? Better to invest more on arm exercises if that weight is dealbreaker
Status symbol to show off? There are better things to buy if you are in that sort of thing.
So why would I use a case?
Your mileage may vary, though, if you have kids, are a woman (fewer/shallower pockets), etc.
- hide the fact that you have the latest and greatest - use it to tuck in receipts or parking tickets between phone and case :)
a downside with the iphone is that some buttons, esp the camera button, are harder to use
But they are defeated. By plastics, no bumper required. This is why the Nokia Windows phones felt so indestructible, polycarbonate is an amazing material for a phone body.
Not sure who you are replying to because I didn’t say that.
I had one of those rugged Android phones before my current iPhone, I think it was the Ulefone Armor X7 Pro. I happened to drop it a few times, worst was from about 1.7 meters up while doing pull ups (wired headphones and busted pants pocket zipper) on concrete. Thought that it’d be a goner for sure, but no, just scratched up the corner of the frame, it had a soft and rubbery quality to it (at least compared to regular plastic).
It was actually a really nice phone, good battery life and everything, except for the part where the battery eventually turned into a pillow and since it’s not exactly easily used serviceable I just moved on.
Since, I started to like iOS but my ideal setup functionality wise would still be something one step closer to a brick with a big battery and a protective exterior (glueing a power bank to my current iPhone case would be a bit silly though).
It's been a year so far of completely non-cautious use and my general take is:
* The screen still scratches; I leave my phone in my pocket or a bicycle saddle bag and it definitely has some damage. However, it is only visible with the screen off, and it turns out not to bother me a single bit.
* The frame of the phone seems almost invulnerable; even with a case many of my older phones got dinged corners, and this one is perfect.
* Overall, the only functional issue I have had with going caseless has been the propensity for the protruding cameras to pick up dust and fingerprints. I find myself having to wipe them even more frequently than I did when I had a case.
I suspect that a case still would have been a net-positive fiscal investment, I'll probably have to sell this phone in "good" or "fair" condition rather than "factory new" like a phone with a case and glass screen protector for its whole life, so I'll lose $50-$100. But I like using the phone on its own. The side and action buttons finally function as they should and the size benefit is appreciated.
Anyway, I'm now a caseless fan and this makes me very interested in the new Air. I think the need for cases is perhaps overblown and especially in a premium market like high-end iPhones where the consumer probably isn't as sensitive to aftermarket value, no-case isn't as rare or foolish as it would seem. For that reason, I doubt a bit that Apple are assuming the average person has a case on their phone. I'm sure they do focus groups, testing, and have some degree of telemetry to understand the case-vs-no-case debate in detail and I strongly doubt that the conclusion is "we assume there will be a case so we will do X".
Now the glass has “a bit more give” which allows it to bounce back and not break like the super hard ones from before.
I’ve abused my 14 pro for quite a while and it has a lot of scratches, but only when the screen is off, otherwise I don’t really see them. Ironically the always on display helps here …
Have never used a case. I’ve dropped them plenty of times. Only once did I do major damage, and that was to the all-glass rear panel of a 4S. I’ve never broken a screen or had to replace a phone due to damage.
The iPhone is very durable! You don’t need a case. They’re bulky and ugly!
Here's video of a drop test where the new Pro version survived drops to the pavement on its front, back, and side from hip height, then the same three drops from shoulder height, before finally having the front glass fail in the third drop from as high above his head as dude's arms would reach.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oof5z3BNTdY
Not exactly super fragile, although the orange finish on the aluminum scuffed up much more easily than the finish they use on titanium frames.
This hasn’t been true for a while with iPhones. I drop mine about this often, and after a few years it’s a little scratched but otherwise fine.
My 14 pro flew from its mount while driving 80km on a motorbike in Vietnam and bounced about on the asphalt, when I eventually retrieved it, it had a few small scratches, and a crack at the back, which I “fixed” by just adding a case.
Honestly I was incredibly surprised, previous phones I owned would shatter to bits if the fell from the bedside table, this guy literally survived a highway toss. Props to the engineers.
It’s got a couple of tiny dents in it, but the screen is untouched and it works like new. I’ve never used a case.
In the iPhone 4 era, if you were unlucky enough to drop your phone even once onto a table the screen will have almost certainly instantly shattered into a million pieces. But that’s far from true now; things have come a long way. The ‘No Case Required iPhone’ is already here.
It was also so light that it felt safe to use it without a protective case. And not that expensive.
Solid, tactile, and just the right size. Mine finally got stuck in a boot loop earlier this year, but I keep it in my desk drawer, and pick it up occasionally. The mute switch (an actual switch, not a button) is still the best.
I find that I treat it very gingerly. Something in my mind expects it to be fragile; presumably because it's thin and looks like glass.
That doesn't matter, though. Battery replacement on iPhones is very common procedure and you'll need to replace both batteries eventually.
I want to see more optimization to reduce the heat from both hardware as in this case and in software side as well. I guess it is easier to show enhancements about hardware made to address something such as heat or processing but comparatively difficult or abstract to show software optimizations?
It looks like the competition is making them sweat (pun intended).
But seriously though, I think it's just due to larger market share (at least in the US), so more people are seeing it and commenting on it.
Market share is not what matters. When an S30 comes out, nobody cares. When a new iPhone comes out, my mother asks me about it.
This is why you're seeing a lot of people talking about something that Samsung did first.
Also not from the US, I live in Thailand. Everyone wants an iPhone. Those who can't afford it buy Oppo, etc.
Samsung may be "strong" in Europe but it's just because it's colorful and/or cheaper. You live in the HN bubble if you think that people care about specs and not brands/price. The choice is generally "Either Apple or whatever else in my budget"
Lol dude, stop acting like you know what's happening in my part of the world. People only care about apple because all major news outlets are payed by apple to talk about it when they hold their yearly sales pitch.
People don't act like this with any other product/manufacturer etc.
> Apple joins Samsung and Google in managing heat
Tribalism is a hell of a drug.
> Wrong. The vast majority of Apple fans don't care about Android.
This is my experience as well. I prefer Apple products but I have Android phones/tablets (test devices) and know there are aspects where Android is better.
That said, I have some friends who make it their life mission to mention any Apple/iPhone failing to me. I just don’t get it. I literally never bring it up, or if I bring up anything Apple related it’s just me excited about a new device I got, never in the context of “look how much better it is than Android”. Even then, I’ve learned to temper my excitement lest they see it as an opportunity to tell me all the problems/issues they have with it. I don’t follow Android news closely, I don’t share “gotcha’s” about the hardware/os, etc.
It reminds me this scene in Mad Men [0], I literally do not think about Android or Android users but I know a couple Android users who seem to obsess over Apple products/users in a way I cannot relate to and do not understand. I can bet any negative Apple news will be relayed to me by them, I literally could not care less about the Android ecosystem issues (of which I see many).
Still, I have found several people who are outright Apple haters and can’t fathom that anyone who uses their products is anything but a brainwashed puppet. These people talk about Apple more than their most ardent fans. It’s an irrational amount of hate I only ever see from meat eaters who hate vegetarians.
A while back I had a friend who (by choice) uses both a Mac and Android describe to me what they disliked about the iPhone when they used one for a few minutes, in a tone that sounded like personal criticism and disappointment. What do I care? It has nothing to do with me, the products I use aren’t a part of my identity.
Another friend, one who uses Windows and Android, used to grill me about Apple on every chance. I mostly ignored it, but eventually just explained: “Look, it’s not that I think Apple is flawless. On the contrary, I think they have plenty of flaws. But I have tried many operating systems (he, on the other hand, always lived on Windows and Android) and Apple’s are the ones which fit what I need to do the least badly”. To his credit, he understood and never again touched the subject.
My philosophy regarding operating systems, text editors, and other subjective sources of flame wars is pretty simple: Use whatever makes you happy and works for you. I don’t care what that is, as long as it doesn’t hurt anyone else. If you ask me a question or an opinion, I’ll try to answer it as truthfully and with as much relevancy as possible for you. I’ll tell you if there’s something I think you may benefit from knowing, but you control the conversation. But if you just want to ignorantly gush about my very informed picks, I’m not interested. Live and let live.
This always gets me. I, as an Apple user, have more vitriolic and in-depth criticisms against Apple than any Android user I know. When Apple haters start their rants, it’s always one of a few superficial talking points that are nowhere near the actual biggest issues of the company or its devices.
Samsung's new notification bubble that is laggy, gets in the way and is hard to dismiss without launching the app it was for? Moronic.
Apple's "superior UX" of app installs via app store, oh wait but to uninstall it, you have to go to finder and delete it aka breaking the UX flow (should be same place). Idiotic.
Apple do make some of the best laptops tho, the m series is great, best touchpad imo.
For all these things it just sucks that all the companies suck. Focus is on shareholders and growth across every domain now. There's a reason companies can chuck billions at the AI bubble for fun - which is hilarious and all those billions and they still haven't solved problems with models that have been solved locally, got the vibe coders on it I guess.
Please don't post flamebait on HN. Stereotyping a large group of people as "obsessed" in reaction to one comment by one person is not cool.
I'm guessing for EV batteries, better options exist since you obviously have power. Although sometimes vapor chambers are used in conjunction with active cooling.
This is because the heat dumps into a liquid which is concentrated at the heat source, but as soon as it evaporates it fills the volume in which it’s contained. Also it’s because the evaporation process itself sucks out heat at a rate that’s orders of magnitude faster than via conduction, convection, or radiation alone.
They do not cool though. They rely on the fact that the heat source is relatively small and that something else can pull heat out of them fast enough to re-condense the liquid (and since they distribute the heat that cooling can attach anywhere or everywhere — this is like an embarrassingly parallel problem in software).
In a battery pack there is a lot of surface area that gets relatively and evenly hot, and little room to extract it between the cells. This would likely result in even heating around the heat pipe, which would tend to evaporate all of the liquid inside and do nothing but raise its overall temperature after an initial delay.
What it potentially could be used for is to draw heat out of the battery pack and up to some place where better airflow were possible, or for some active cooling system to extract the heat, but there are problems with scaling up like that (in typical heat pipes they manufacture wicking inner layers to draw the water back even against gravity).
At the points they could be used it’s likely significantly cheaper and easier to control some air or liquid cooling loop through the batteries.
Phones are ideal because a tiny little chip is producing almost all of the heat. It’s not even a lot, it’s just in a small area. Temperature goes up when heat can’t escape, so in this case, spreading the heat around even a few square inches can be a major factor in keeping down the temperature of the CPU/GPU.
Contrast this to EV batteries which are huge and produce evenly distributed heat already; there just isn’t the same value when things are big enough to add cooling systems, when cooling systems are necessary anyway, and when the heat pipe or vapor chamber just adds another piece too the system.
Edit: Meanwhile your average Android device has multiple publicly known remote execution issues.
> your average Android device has multiple publicly known remote execution issues.
Help me distinguish between "publicly known" RCE vulns and private ones. Do the privately owned exploits like FORCEDENTRY count as "publicly known", or only the Greykey/Cellebrite exploits used by governments?
I don’t think this is accurate. Not even every nation-state would be expected to have access to iPhone zero days, particularly with the new memory protection rolling out.
I’m not trusting in ethics. I’m trusting in commerce.
MIE should drastically reduce both the production rate and lifetime of zero days. That, in turn, means a focus on maximising profit per vulnerability versus process line.
Google’s primary motivation is to sell ads. Their brand is not hurt if phone brand FlirpleFoo ships millions of Android devices and then hurts those customers by not keeping those devices secure.
https://security.apple.com/blog/memory-integrity-enforcement...
Oh, I remember when they said this about Blastdoor too!
I agree with the other commenters that "vapor chamber" is a kind of heat pipe, since "heat pipe" doesn't really impose constant radii by definition.
That said, I assume the main technical breakthrough here is in manufacturing, producing tiny chambers consistently in enough volume for iphones.
I liked this article from 10 years ago that actually goes into detail about how Fujitsu actually constructed a super-thin heat pipe (really just a very long vapor chamber) https://spectrum.ieee.org/superslim-liquid-loop-will-keep-fu...
https://ntrs.nasa.gov/api/citations/19770025469/downloads/19...
No, he has never used owned or used an Apple product. Not worth his time.
Have you ever seen a CPU or GPU heat sink that has 5-6 heat pipes in parallel because they need to spread the head over a larger area? A vapor chamber is an upgrade over heat pipes in applications that aren’t moving heat from a point to a line.
Don’t be so dismissive. This is actually cool.
Do you know if the vapor chambers operate at reduced internal atmospheric pressure? Unless I'm missing something, in order to get the liquid-gas phase boundary to a useful temperature, you'd have to bring the pressure down to, idk, 10kPa (boiling point of water is ~50C)? That would complicate manufacturing for sure, and also means that any leaks are catastrophic for your thermal solution.
Also I would be remiss if I did not note that the refrigerant designation of water is R-718.
Indeed they do. A random search found this company that manufactures vapor chambers and they have a short discussion: https://radianheatsinks.com/vapor-chamber-heatsink/
The miniaturisation of vapor chambers is cool, though. Not new (phones have been coming out with those for years), but it's not "just" another heatpipe.
I think that the fact that more and more phones producing so much heat that they need vapor chambers is also something worth writing about.
That said, most news media seems to have drunk the Apple kool aid because they all rave about the vapor chamber for some reason. I guess iPhone media is just a few years behind the curve.
Android/other phones have had heat pipes/vapour chambers for a long time now. I'm not sure why anybody calls this novel or new even when applied to mobile devices.
Moar Apple effect, I guess.
At least the heat will be spread out from one spot (and into the battery?). All phone makers are doing what they can within the design constraints.
Why do they ignore the fact that so many people use cases (and the market opportunity)? It's almost a defect at this point. Some people like the personalization but I think a lot of people just want something that won't break when you drop it...
1. People like a variety of custom cases that themselves have features (eg wallet cases random designs etc). If it’s built into the phone that customization capability is worse because you now have two layers of protection making for a very thick and heat-insulating design.
2. It’s valuable to have partners that make accessories for your device. If you kill that line of business for them, other things may go away and those partners will want to work with you less.
3. An integrated case will still suffer cosmetic damage. But now without the option to replace, you’re stuck with that damage.
Apple sells cases.
There are ruggedized phones available. The market is small.
You can get away without a case with a modern iPhone for longer than most people assume.
The average person does better with a $10 sacrificial case layer that snaps on to their phone that can be replaced whenever they want or if it gets damaged.
Or their hand. Or their pocket.
It’s fine. It’s planned.
The cooling solution’s job is to spread the heat around as much as possible so it can be dissipated in the limited conditions available.
I do wonder how this will affect benchmarks, though. I can imagine the phones running slower in practice compared to reviews because the reviewers don't put a case on there.
I'm sure this is handy for LLM usage, but this was a problem before those were a thing I'd say.
Seems fair to ask: what's the expected lifespan of an iPhone these days?
Does anyone here have insight as to what percent of materials used to make them is actually recycled?
So Apple uses deionized water, while others add in some other chemicals to prevent it from freezing. So how will the new iPhone deal with freezing temperatures?
* Edit: the article mentioned freezing could crack the seal. Freezing would be a bigger issue than I had thought, then.
Not a huge deal. Just charge it when it's warmer. I would have been a little surprised if something inside popped and suddenly the phone started thermal throttling or had water damage.
Old phones and some android phones work just fine in these conditions.
but that's in theory :P
These phones are not going to age well, the paste or thermal pads is not going to last. Larger sheets of graphene for full size processors and gpus are good for a decade, at this size it'll be lucky to get to 5.
Wonder what the next Apple "innovation" will be.
Nobody, especially not the title of this post, says anything about this being “innovative” or “omg”.
I think you are right that there is an Apple mental field that controls people, but I actually think the effect is on the other side.
Most Apple fans just comment on something new and go like “hey, look how neat this”. The haters, on the other hand, respond with more or less the same thing multiple times even in the same thread.
I understand if a kid does it, it’s innate to humans to side with Pepsi or Cola, with Xbox or PS, but for an adult, it’s just sad.
If you love tech, just appreciate new things regardless of who the company that makes them is. And if you don’t, then why waste your time on hating it all the time? Just get a hobby.
leakycap•4mo ago
"My phone is really hot, is this normal or is it broken?!" is something I started getting asked by random iPhone-using friends over the last few years as they upgraded to a new model and then felt it sizzling.
thewebguyd•4mo ago
But even then it was no hotter than my 16 Pro
reaperducer•4mo ago
I have one, too, and you're right that the heating is just what happens while it restores its data and settings and whatnot.
I believe it also re-scans your entire photo library to re-identify dogs, cars, people, etc. with whatever improved algorithm comes with the new chip/OS.
This happens every time you get a new iPhone. Depending on how much it has to sort through, it can take a couple of hours to a week.
I always leave the case off for the first few days.
dannyw•4mo ago
jtokoph•4mo ago
Havoc•4mo ago
One less core, and from the benchmarking it's clear that it throttles a fair bit earlier than the rest. Even worse its a titanium body so worse dissipation