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Apple's Nutty New iPhone Charging Case

Posted by Matt Birchler
— 1 min read

So that iPhone battery case, huh? Everyone tends to agree that it's too expensive, gives too little power, and looks simply god-awful. In general, I agree that the thing looks bizarre, but let me play devil's advocate for a minute.

Between my wife and I, we've owned 3 battery cases. We've had the cheap Amazon ones all the up to the nicest Mofies. We've been glad to have them, but We've each given them up in the past year. Our eventual distaste for them was lead by these elements:

  1. They're bulky as hell. The iPhone 6 was not a huge phone, but putting a battery case on it made it feel massive. It also basically doubled the weight of the phone.
  2. They're a hassle. Thinking about how to manage my charge was a headache, and knowing I always had to have a micro-USB and Lightning cable for the phone was frustrating.
  3. They feel cheap. With pieces that snap into o place and switches that feel anything but premium, it made the day to day use of our phones to be less pleasant.

To Apple's credit, their charging case solves these problems quite well. Since the only part of the case that adds bulk is where the battery is, you're adding less bulk. Using a slightly smaller battery than some other case-makers also means that they have less battery, and therefore less weight, to add. And when you compare the feel in hand of the silicone cases vs the cheap plastic on most charging cases, it's night and day in terms of feel in the hands.

Yeah, it looks funky, but it solves a lot of the problems most other charging cases suffer from. This isn't the ideal solution because it does look really silly, but I find it a little funny that Apple releases a product that makes visual sacrifices to solve usability problems and they get torn to shreds.

Of course, I'm only playing devil's advocate.