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My 16" MacBook Pro has a tinge of this. I have the space gray model. Where I rest my left hand in front of the keyboard and and where my right wrist are lighter. It's gotta be from oils in my skin? Either way purely cosmetic. And only visible in certain lighting conditions. It has made me consider silver on the next buy.
I have exact same problem and same consideration. will buy silver (which is nature color of aluminum) only in future. the coloring technology is not matured enough at the moment.
 
Hmmm...the XR too huh? Color wise, mine looks as new as the day I bought it back when it was released. It just has a few scratches on the case I use. The phone itself though is in great shape. I love my XR still.
 
Its a really weird place for the colour to go like that though? Its been in a case, so even though its not somewhere you'd naturally hold it, that should rule out things like sweat, cosmetics etc. It does almost look like that single part of the phone has been left out in the sun! Which isn't possible due to where the fade is. Very strange.
 
Reminds me of my blue Nokia N8 which had the same issue. I guess it’s bound to happen on anodized aluminum finishes. Btw I don’t get why it HAS to be metal. When did we decide plastics were no good?
When apple figured out that it was very durable. They were like nope, we won't sell many replacements that way and started spinning metal and glass as a "premium" phone material. Best phone I ever owned was the 1020. Felt awesome in my hand, was extremely durable. I cracked the screen, and it was a simple one screw affair to replace the screen since Nokia engineers had an ingenious screen lock mechanism to hold the screen on. One screw released the screen and you just had to pop the front facing camera out of it's rubber shock mount, and you had your screen completely replaced. Took 20 min to do the entire job. Unlike my iphone where you have to jump through 7 rings of hell to get it apart, and when it goes back together it's NEVER the same.

As for the color fade, Looks like UV degradation to me. If it were in a case the entire time. My case is grey and my iphone 11 is still perfectly black since no UV gets to the sides I am guessing. All aluminum will fade over time.
 
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I’m not sure if anyone mentioned this.. but I’ve noticed hand sanitizer reacting with a variety of coatings.
 
I just pulled my 11 in black out of it's case and it's like new. I will check my wifes lilac 11 later as it is in a clear case.
 
I have exact same problem and same consideration. will buy silver (which is nature color of aluminum) only in future. the coloring technology is not matured enough at the moment.
Silver aluminum consumer products are still typically anodized a more pleasant shade of “silver”
 
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My Pacific Blue iPhone 12 Pro Max still looks good as new (and I don't use a case). Love this phone!
 
If the color fades a certain way you could get a cool unique gradient effect. Although I'm surprised someone would even notice color issues considering how many people are casing their iPhone. I typically prefer to go without a case but I got one for my 12 Pro for MagSafe.
 
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