The " 'mirror' plastic" on the back of iPods is, actually, chromed or polished metal (I'm not really sure exactly which kind of metal, but I'm betting on stainless steel).
I always assumed is was plastic since it sounds and feels plasticky when you tap it, but according to various web sources it's actually chrome plated aluminum. The chrome plating is incomprehensibly thin, hence its scratch-happy nature.
As long as you don't try to wipe the smudges from the back of your iPod, carry your keys and change and your iPod on separate pockets, and always lay your iPod either on top of the sock or inside it, you won't get virtually any scratches on its body (yes, even yesterday, I had to give a friend of mine a homicidal stare because she was about to lay it down directly on a stone coffee table... fortunately, that stopped her just in time since, from my experience at least, laying iPods on furniture - even when covered in some kind of cloth, like dining tables - is what scratches them more easily, because of friction and debris). Oh, and as a bonus, the sock actually wipes the smudges itself, since it's made of soft cotton, without really scratching it.
But that's exactly the point... which other gadget do you need to treat like an infant with osteoporosis? Listen to yourself, you just wrote a manual for keeping a
p o r t a b l e device scratch free, and you see nothing wrong with having to resort to that? There's nothing strange about a portable, pocket-sized device that will scratch if you look at it funny?
I've had 12 cellphones since 1994, I still have 10 of them in a drawer. They've been in pockets with keys and coins, they've been scraping against sand grains at the bottom of bags, one has been in a toilet and another was soaked in beer -- yet they all look fine, save for some minor scratches only noticable upon closer examination. My iPod Nano gen1 looked worse after 2 hours of use than my old Nokia 8210 does after nearly 10 years (that's the one that got soaked in beer, amongst other atrocities). Same goes for the back of my iPod Touch, which I've kept in a protective sleeve right from the beginning. The myriad of scratches is the result of
occasionally placing it flat on a seemingly clean tabletop without the sleeve on.
Do you really believe that a company which keeps stunning the market with engineering feats like the MBA, the iMac and the iPhone, has absolutely no idea how to make something as basic as a scratch resistant shell? Besides, they already achieved that prior to the Gen1 Nano, with the iPod Mini which had a tough outer shell of anodized aluminum (re-introduced for the Gen2 Nano, which all Gen1 customers then had to run out and buy).
I'm not big on conspiracy theories, but I'm telling you, that iPod back is tailor made to scratch easily. Remember when the Nano was introduced and Steve kept rubbing in the line "now we finally know what that small extra pocket is for?" Do you really think he didn't know at the time that if you actually do put the Nano in that pocket, even the tiniest bit of lint or microscopic breadcrumbs in there will have your Nano look like Edward James Olmos in a matter of hours? Oh, he knew, and laughed all the way to the bank, because:
1) He knew you'd blame yourself for the scratches (Q.E.D.), buy a fresh iPod and swear you'll take better care of it this time.
2) In order to take better care of it you buy various sleeves, socks and other protective contraptions. Voilá: Apple cashes in on the poor durability of the iPod exterior.
3) But even then you'd eventually screw up anyway, as the iPod is impossible not to scratch even when protected by 10 layers of silicon, steel and fabric, so you'll buy a third one... etc.
And now they're "improving" the iPhone along the same lines. The first one was way too good.
