Speaker 1: I'll be honest with you, I did not think a phone case would be the main outrage of the iPhone fifteens debut, but well, it's been a week with the iPhone 15 and folks are just scratching to find a controversy. No, really they are using their fingers to scratch up these cases in Apple stores marking them up. Apple charges $60 for its new fine woven material case. It is described as a durable micro twill and a high quality case, but there are numerous reports [00:00:30] of it not holding up after light use and just looking a little grungy, I mean let's be honest, they are made of garbage. Really, they are 68% recycled material. Is this attempt at making a more sustainable material just a flop that Apple should take off shelves? I bought one to unbox with you and check it out, but this case is not the only heat that the iPhone 15 is facing.
Speaker 1: A few people are posting online that their phones are overheating and there are videos posted of cracked [00:01:00] phones with people saying that it's easy to break the back glass panel of the pros. Before we start digging our nails into Apple products, there's one more thing we should go over. What are the facts behind all of these iPhone 15 first week complaints and how much of the drama is a real cause for concern? I'm Bridget Carey, and this is one more thing. Apple is no longer selling leather accessories and created this fine woven material to take the place of a leather case. It [00:01:30] feels soft like suede and Apple says it undergoes hours of testing throughout the design and manufacturing process. But there are so many videos and reports saying that it is so easy to scuff up and stain this $60 case which costs $10 more than the plastic or silicone apple cases.
Speaker 1: Our phone reviewer, Patrick Collin, found his fine woven looking not so fine after a week of use, especially with the indent marks that form when you use a mag safe accessory. [00:02:00] Now, apple does list this as something that can happen on its case product page. It reads the fine woven material may show where over time interaction with MagSafe accessories will leave slight imprints. So how could this product be released then? Apple right now is pushing hard on MagSafe, but Apple is also selling a case that they made and it's going to look shabby if you use MagSafe at the Apple store where I bought this case, so many of the display samples were full of people's scratches. [00:02:30] I'm not here to carve my initials into the case, but I wanted to see what a normal day is like using it and doing the same stuff I always do. So let's see what it looks like in perfect condition. Behold the blue fine woven. Yes, it is a soft material. It feels like a fabric. I'm nervous taking it out. It might never look this good again. It's just a case it should be able to handle you taking it out of the box. Okay, there we
Speaker 2: [00:03:00] Look.
Speaker 1: You can almost kind of hear it has a little bit of a wiggy wiggy sound.
Speaker 1: Just rubbing it isn't showing any marks. Will I say it feels like a luxury fabric? No, it just feels like fabric. I wouldn't call this a luxury feel. Luxury is velvet, but this is just soft. Alright, now to put it in the iPhone 15 Pro Max, and this is my current case for the iPhone 15 [00:03:30] Pro Max, another type of fine woven a gym sock. Yes, I really did this. I have no case. Everyone's saying it's breakable. This is from the Hanes collection folks. Now I could finally put this iPhone 15 pro in a case and it's blue so I had to get the blue to match.
Speaker 1: Alright, there you have it. Normally I buy plastic or rubber cases. I like the way they feel. I like how easy they are to clean. I don't want to think [00:04:00] about my case and I have to think about this case. I don't know how it's going to fare with my lifestyle, but we'll see. I'm going to do something different here. I'm going to stop recording for now. I'm going to go home with this case. I'm going to come back tomorrow to show how it's been for just a normal day of use. So let's see how it goes. Just putting it in the back pocket. Alright, let's do this.
Speaker 1: [00:04:30] There is a scratch, actually more than one. The first happened right away, just five minutes after I walked off camera. So here it is, folks. Day two, how did this happen? You might ask a coworker in the office wanted to see the iPhone and of course I don't mind my peers checking it out. What's the harm? He wanted to see the titanium and so he just popped off the case, touched the titanium, put it back [00:05:00] on and handed it back to me and that was that. He didn't mean anything. That's just normal life, right? Already game over already a blip, a shiny little streak of failure across my Apple logo. And then I got this mark down here from trying to fit it in my jacket zippered pocket. Ironically, a leather jacket. The pro max is almost too big for my pocket, but I got it in there.
Speaker 1: It fit and it [00:05:30] left a mark. Of course, this iPhone is protected, but my sanity, my desire for perfection, it's damaged. I used a mag safe stand overnight, and you know what? That did not make a mark on one day abuse. So I guess it's not something that shows marks right away, but yeah, as you can see in this comparison, it's not perfect anymore. Apple has a care page up online that explains how to clean the fine woven cases and it also [00:06:00] says some scratches may diminish over time. The Apple retail employee who sold this to me said the case could be returned in 14 days if I was not satisfied. Just like other Apple products. I know Apple wanted to make less garbage in the world, but if this makes people want to just toss it and buy a second case, then maybe this idea for a thin recycled fabric just didn't do what Apple was hoping it would do.
Speaker 1: And Apple does say on his website, if the show of where will bother you, you're better off [00:06:30] with a silicone or clear case. Another thing making headlines this week are complaints of phones getting too hot, but this one's a little more murky of an issue. It's worth watching, but it's hard to pin down exactly what could be going on. One complaint many outlets are pointing to is from Ian Zebo, a three D artist who makes renderings for nine to five Mac. He wrote that his iPhone 15 Pro Max is almost too hot to touch while fast charging. And he said, I thought people were over-exaggerating, [00:07:00] but no, this isn't great. He went on to say that the left side rail felt the hottest where the logic board is, and it happened to him with a 30 watt wired power adapter and cable from the company nomad.
Speaker 1: Now, I happened to also have a 30 watt adapter from Nomad. That company works with Apple to make accessories that work with the iPhone. It's not cheap stuff. I plugged mine in last night and I couldn't recreate it with one try, but it's still worth just seeing if there are more complaints over time. [00:07:30] And this opens up the question of does it matter what kind of charger you use? Apple support page says the iPhone should be able to charge fine with any U S B C cable and power adapter that is compliant with the U S B C. Standard nine to five Mac was hot on the case, so to speak, and highlighted other reports of warm phones. Korean YouTuber Bulls lab used a thermal imaging camera to show that it hit 116 degrees Fahrenheit during demanding use like benchmark [00:08:00] tests and gaming. Okay, sure, that is putting the iPhone through the paces and yeah, it's going to be a little hotter than normal.
Speaker 1: It's also typical for a phone to get hot when you're first setting it up with the extra strain of getting everything reloaded on it. And Apple even says that on its support page. But Android author's editor in chief, Amir Quie, said he was not doing hard tests or gaming at his iPhone 15. Pro Max also had excessive heat. He said it happened when he charged it with a 65 watt U SS B PD [00:08:30] GaN charger. That's something he says he has used to charge other iPhones before without issue. He said it did not happen when he switched to a slower 15 watt charger. He also said it also happened during long use sessions, him just scrolling and chatting on social media without it being plugged in. It is worth watching this one to see if it continues to be an issue and if it matters how you charge it.
Speaker 1: In the meantime, let me, if you're experiencing any unusual heat, you should know that if your phone gets too warm or too cold, a temperature [00:09:00] warning screen will show up on the phone. This is a sign that it's overheating and that you need to cool that phone down right away, unplug it, turn it off, get it away from sunlight, that sort of thing. There have also been a number of videos of people dropping phones on hard surfaces and saying, look how easy they are to break compared to other iPhone models where maybe other models did not shatter in the same pattern or break as much in one try. I think this is more of an effect of the perception of the term [00:09:30] titanium. People hear titanium, they think strong, but Apple never said this was the strongest iPhone. The presentation pointed out how titanium makes the phone lighter.
Speaker 1: The iPhone is still made of glass. All glass iPhones can crack with one drop. Trust me, I know a few years back I bought an iPhone and accidentally dropped it without a case. Within hours of getting it and with one drop it shattered. Yeah, AppleCare saved me from the grief of breaking a new iPhone, but it doesn't matter what year the phone is, there's [00:10:00] always glass and glass cracks when it's dropped. And if you're making videos trying to damage an iPhone and then you push it with all your might to bend a phone with your thumbs and then you're surprised it cracks. Yeah, I'm not going to stress out that it broke on you. That said, it is an expensive glass object that you take everywhere with you at every moment in time. Get AppleCare, get a case, get a sock. So are the complaints all there cracked up to be?
Speaker 1: I'll keep using the fine [00:10:30] woven case for now, but I'm sure I'll be switching to a more fun plastic case soon. Sorry to disappoint you, mother Earth. There are also nice leather alternative cases from other companies like this one from Mott. It's made of vegan leather. There are plenty of other options out there if you don't want leather, but I want to hear what you think. Are you getting heated about the charging reports or do you find the issue to be lukewarm? We will see how hot things get for Apple next week when we're here back on Friday. Until then, [00:11:00] thanks for watching.
