Haptics and phone cases

I want the things I touch to feel nice. This does not necessarily mean a specific material, but you pick up an object and it either feels good or not. As with anything involving a feeling this is hard to describe. But it is a constant in my life. The problem is it is not always practical.

A good comparison are TV remotes. When I pickup the remote of our Sony TV it feels like plastic. It makes funny noises if you squish it a bit too much. The buttons are mushy. It is not a good feeling remote. Compare this to the aluminium block the AppleTV remote is. While there are many things to complain about, the remotes haptics is in my opinion not part of the list.

Usually I do not have a case for my phone. The one exception is when I take it to the gym to log my workouts. Surfaces are hard and there simply is not a good spot to put it where it will not potentially get damaged or scratched up. This never was a problem and even years in most of my devices looked pristine.

All of this changed over a decade ago when my wife brought a cat into my life. And shortly after added a second one. (Although my wife insists that I picked the second one, so her being with us is partly on me.) Since this day not a single phone made it without a scratch. It was never really bad, usually the frame got a small ding. Guess what happened this weekend?

Apple has been advertising the iPhones premium materials for a long time. And for any phone past the 3gs I have to agree. They always felt really good when I picked them up. Sometimes the feel gets in the way of functionality (iPhone 4 anyone :) ), but that is a different problem. And phone cases usually do not feel good.

I tried a few options, leather, pleather, silicone and lately for the gym Apples "woven" case. I agree with their decision to discontinue this case. While mine does not look as bad as some others I have seen they managed to add a really sharp edge around the connector port which is where I usually put my little finger to stabilize the phone.

A case would have avoided the scratch my phone got this weekend. It might be time to reevaluate my stance on this and give a case a fair shot. If I can find one that feels nice. If you have any suggestions please send them my way. It does not have to be the most rugged or durable case. I am also okay with a bumper. Really the only two requirements are that it fits an iPhone 15 Pro Max and that I do not hate picking up my phone.