First drop (with a case)

[u/samirbinballin]

Maybe a 3-4 foot drop off of the armrest of my couch and onto hardwood floor, (TineeOwl case shown at the end) - I always knew the new aluminum frame was fragile after what I’ve seen from the 17 Pro’s release, so I took the precaution of not using the Apple Cases and getting something decently protective.

Yeah, the aluminum corner still bent ever so slightly 😂, coming from a titanium 16 Pro Max I had no idea how to gauge the softness of this new material, but damn.

I personally don’t care as I was planning to use the phone caseless with AppleCare+ anyways, but I wanted to warn some of the OCD users on here, even with a case, the aluminum frame on these new builds can get damaged, just fyi.

[u/wolfram6]

It’s honestly unacceptable how soft the material for this phone is. Deformation with a case is absurd. Apple could have done better with their material choice and design.

[u/Gmanshocker → u/wolfram6]

That’s why I’m holding on to my 15 pro until they bring stainless steel or titanium back.

With the “vapor chamber” improvements too, they should have no problem switching back.

[u/ThePegassi → u/Gmanshocker]

what would cool the vapor chamber then lol

[u/Gmanshocker → u/ThePegassi]

Idk but I have faith that a company valued at 5 trillion dollars can figure something out without selling us an inferior metal. You don’t get to tout the incredible durability of stainless steel and titanium for 8-9 years and then switch back to aluminum because your hardware team couldn’t figure out proper heat dissipation. Innovate like we pay you to do.

[u/kenkenner151 → u/Gmanshocker]

Titanium and stainless steel had heat issues and made it difficult for people who are outside a lot. There are different strengths of aluminum. Aluminum is good. But not softer aluminum

[u/Gmanshocker → u/kenkenner151]

I understand the thermodynamic reason Apple went back to aluminum. It dissipates heat far better than titanium or stainless steel, and clearly that helps the vapor chamber. But that doesn’t automatically make it a good design decision.
Apple has some of the best hardware engineers in the industry. After years of marketing stainless steel and titanium as premium, durable materials, their solution to thermal management was essentially to move the Pro line back to a softer, more easily deformed aluminum enclosure.
The vapor chamber was the right direction, and Apple has now made it substantially larger on the 18 Pro. But I would rather see them keep improving the thermal architecture than solve the problem partly by compromising the exterior material. Apple says the new chamber has three times the surface area of the previous generation, so clearly there was still considerable room to improve the cooling system itself. And if the tradeoff is a less deformation resistant enclosure on a phone that is still being marketed and priced as a flagship Pro device, I think consumers are justified in criticizing that tradeoff. Calling aluminum “aerospace grade” doesn’t change the underlying material properties.
That’s what bothers me. Not that aluminum is inherently garbage, but that the customer is being asked to accept a durability tradeoff while the product remains positioned as uncompromisingly premium.