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What is your preferred iPhone housing material?

What back material do you want the new iPhone to be made out of?

  • Glossy Plastic (like iPhone 3G)

    Votes: 10 7.8%

  • Aluminum (like original iPhone)

    Votes: 63 49.2%

  • Chrome (like iPods)

    Votes: 2 1.6%

  • Matte Plastic

    Votes: 14 10.9%

  • Rubberized Plastic

    Votes: 16 12.5%

  • Carbon Fiber

    Votes: 23 18.0%
  • Total voters
    128
TheSpaz

TheSpaz

macrumors 604
Original poster
Jun 20, 2005
7,032
1
Simple question. With all the rumors and speculation around what the new iPhone will be made out of... what would you like it to be made out of? What is your favorite preferred material on the back of the iPhone?

I wanna what most users would want.
 
Of the two current options I personally enjoy the metal casing. It looks nicer and I don't have any issues with it slipping out of my hand. The black & white plastic while durable just looks a lot cheaper.

Although the rumored matte finish for the 3rd iPhone itteration seems like it would be my favorite. I am hoping for something along the lines of the new Nintendo DSi's casing.
 
I find it funny that nobody has voted for the current 3G case or the iPod chrome. Hah!
 
Wow! Big lead for the aluminum. I think most Apple fans want aluminum since the rest of Apple's line of products is aluminum... iMac, MacBook, MacBook Pro, Mac Pro and Mac mini. I really wish there was a better way to make the entire iPhone unibody aluminum. Perhaps they could put the antennas under a plastic Apple logo cut out of the aluminum.
 
I think aluminum is out of the question until they can develop some sort of alloy to make sure all the radios inside can receive proper signal. The only reason they went to a plastic back was to make sure the new 3G radio and updated radios would work properly.

I like the aluminum design very much since I have an unibody macbook pro myself, but I would much rather have excellent call quality on the rumored matte surface than bad reception on an aluminum casing.
 
How about a scratch resistant coating?! My god Apple is horrible at building durable products with regards to scratches and marks. My Nokia E51 has a black chrome finish and spends it's life at the bottom of my bag with pens, screwdrivers, and assorted accessories of sharp and pointy persuasion yet it still looks almost good as new and my iPhone 3G which has never been dropped and even has a protective automotive tape on the back looks worse. That is probably my biggest gripe. Make it carbon fiber!!
 
I pray that they never make an iPhone with a chrome back like the iPod Touch. That thing gets scratched just by looking at it.

I hope they go back to an aluminum-like casing. I never owned the original 2G iPhone, but I liked the design better.
 
We have to evolve the look people. Hopefully the aluminum casing is left in the past. We can't innovate if were not starting new trends :cool:

With that said I like the Matte finish.
 
I think that the original aluminum looked nice, but it dented way too easily. I dropped mine just wrong (not much distance, but it was on tile) and got an ugly dent on the corner. I was eager to get rid of it and get the 3G! Much better after 10 months of use.
 
I'd like to see a metallic, textured plastic, like the Gun Metal Incase Slider has.
Carbon fibre would be too expensive, but would be totally awesome, as it's at least as strong as steel, for a fifth of the weight.

That said, I've been rocking the black Air Jacket, from Power Support for a while now, and the rubberized plastic finish is awesome. It repels fingerprints, scratches and lint, whilst providing tremendous grip too!
 
I do like the aluminum however a matte finish would be cool because it wouldn't scratch as easy or be as noticeable and it would be really nice to rock a naked iPhone and not worry about getting a bunch of noticeable scratches.
 
I bought a Incase rubberized shell the day after I got my 3G and it's stayed there ever since. The slinky original may look good but slips out of the pocket too easily to be usable.

I hope the next version will at least have non-slip sides.
 
JayLenochiniMac said:
I meant aluminum-like in terms of feel, but some kind of non-conducting material.



The bottom black part of the original iPhone is matte and holds up to scratches really well.
Click to expand...

Except that they're not talking of matte as in that type of matte plastic. I think they're talking about a textured matte plastic and those get destroyed. Hell, look at the black MacBooks - matte and they got destroyed pretty quick.
 
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