The OP clearly has an obsessive personality but also seems to have had an unlucky experience. I had my 12 pro screen protector installed at the apple store with no issues. I am on the iUp program so minor scratches arnt an issue since the phone isnt really mine anyway and i will get a new one next year and case it till then. There is no perfect iphone.
There are perfect iPhones, because I’ve had them.
Yeah that's a pretty solid summation. I am still on the fence this year but am starting to get the "itch" for the first time since picking up my 8+ on launch day. The screen protection I had installed the day I got it is still on there, the lady who installed it at the Verizon store did it by hand. I have installed other screen protection by hand with no problems. If I bite the bullet it will be done by me or by a store employee by hand.
I'd like to think that Apple might have tested this when developing the phones or at least have had Belkin test the install process before offering it. Either they did and didn't receive these results or brushed it off. Who knows, your guess is as good as mine because that ship sailed. On that note I applaud the OP for reporting it and for getting a new device to replace it. I definitely agree it should have been replaced so good on Apple for doing that. If that happened to me the first time, I'd have never have let someone do that by machine the second time and that's where the confusion sets in. I understand the OP has a shaky hand and is unable to do it, so there's that. Pretty sure there are other options though to have screen protection done. Whatever the case it's good to get this out there so others are aware of what might happen.
I agree with a few of the comments. No need to obsess with minor imperfections--unless it impacts performance, that said out of the box, a phone or a car or whatever, should be as close to perfect as possible. Wear caused during ownership is one thing--that's life. Out of the box, brand new, whatever it is, I'm expecting as close to perfect as possible. Apple made it right in this case and that's a good thing. Same way as when my auto dealership scratched paint on my vehicle, they fixed it, no cost to me and provided me with a rental.
The second time was done because I felt like it was insinuated by the supervisor that their machine couldn’t have scratched it because their tool is plastic, trying to point the fault back on to me.
I wanted to be wrong about their tool scratching it, but it turned out I was right. And the replacement iPhone was wasted.
With the graphite iPhone, I didn’t want to use the iPhone without protection because I was going to wait until Apple restocked the silver models, while also seeing if this color would grow on me.
I’ve seen the iPhone 11 Pro and iPhone 12 Pro screens getting their scratched easily, so I needed a screen protector since I didn’t want to risk damaging it. Also I strongly believed the PVD coating wouldn’t get scratched by their plastic tool.
In the off chance that I would like the graphite, I wanted the screen protector installed immediately after the box was opened, so I got it done with Apple. Because if I didn’t like the graphite by the time silver was restocked, then I would also be able to get a refund for the screen protector.
After the install, the scratches appeared on graphite band and I also noticed that weird defect on the back glass, so it was pointless again to keep.