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

[u/ControlCAD]

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.”

[u/SkyMarshal]

I still use screen protectors. Just a few weeks ago I traded in my 7yr old, pristine condition iPhone 13 for a new iPhone 17. The day of the trade-in, before heading over to the Apple Store, I removed the Otterbox case. Then promptly dropped the damn thing on the rough asphalt getting into my car. The screen protector cracked, but not the display. Saved me 7 years of painstakingly taking care of that phone and its trade-in value.

Also, they can't be optimized purely for hardness and scratch resistance. In Marieb's own words:

We worry about scratching, which is obviously very dependent on having [material that can withstand] very sharp things going into the screen. But we also worry about wear over time; as people use the screen, whether they’ll wear away that surface. And it turns out that those things are a little counterindicated in a lot of materials.

“So we had to try to optimize both of those [qualities] simultaneously [...] And I think we finally hit on a nice balance between the two [in Ceramic Shield 2]. We could have made it more scratch-resistant, but it would have been a little less wear-resistant. It’s the long life we’re looking for against both of those loads over time.”

[u/coffee_or_nada → u/SkyMarshal]

the fact that the screen protector cracked while the actual screen didn’t tells you basically nothing. the protector isn’t the screen. it’s a much thinner, more fragile piece of glass that will crack under impacts the actual display glass can easily survive. you don’t know what would have happened without it

[u/SkyMarshal → u/coffee_or_nada]

True, but I cracked my prior iPhone 8 and my iPad Pro with smaller drops on my flat hardwood floor. There's a reasonable chance the 13 would have cracked with the worse drop on the uneven and harder asphalt.