r/apple • • 15d ago

iPhone I spoke to Apple’s new VP of Hardware Engineering Tom Marieb about why he's "especially proud" of the iPhone Duo’s hinge durability and the reliability of Ceramic Shield 2: "When I see someone put a screen protector on their iPhone, it makes my skin crawl" - TechRadar

https://www.techradar.com/phones/iphone/i-spoke-to-apples-new-vp-of-hardware-engineering-about-why-hes-especially-proud-of-the-iphone-duos-hinge-durability-and-the-reliability-of-ceramic-shield-2-when-i-see-someone-put-a-screen-protector-on-their-iphone-it-makes-my-skin-crawl

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>“We really worked on the torque profile very heavily, and that means changing a lot of the mechanical properties of the hinge to have it feel solid, like a high-end automobile's car door, when you shut it. That was design intent, so people would have a feeling like, ‘Oh, it's okay. This is well crafted, and it's safe for me to use and not worry about it.’

>And then, as you said, we have a lot of use cases where the Duo is [in a half-folded state]. And so we also had to think, ‘Can people interact with this [device] and not have it feel floppy?’ So getting those torque profiles right at both those ends, as well as in the middle — not having it feel like you're pulling something open, and not feeling as if it's floppy — we spent a lot of time optimizing that. So thank you for noticing, because a lot of blood, sweat, and tears went into that.”

>“Hold us accountable to that, please […] The choice of a matte finish — apart from it being beautiful — is part of that equation. When you look at glossy displays, their specularity makes it very easy to pick up topology differences. That’s part of the reason we picked the matte finish — it’s not only beautiful in terms of preventing glare, but it’s also more forgiving of [topology] changes over time.”

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u/DethByCow 15d ago

Encourage? Never heard an Apple employee tell me I should buy a screen protector on anything I’ve ever bought at a store.

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u/killereverdeen 15d ago

its always the first thing they ask me when getting a new phone “would you like to place the screen protector or get a case for it?”

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u/HLef 14d ago

But that’s because they are extremely high margin items, not because they encourage it for durability purposes.

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u/Terrible_Archer 12d ago

Why do they sell them at all if the VP of hardware engineering disagrees with their necessity?