Loving the iPhone 5: Scuffs, Dings, and All

I’m an iPhone 5 early adopter, which is rather like being a guinea pig, only more fun and less likely to cause me to grow extra eyes or glow in the dark.  Maybe.  The iPhone 5 is a total redesign, tall and slender, light and sleek.  The ultra thin anodized aluminum backing, to which most of the interior components are fixed, deserves most of the credit for the reduction in weight.  The thinner, single glass panel on the front accounts for the rest of it.

This isn’t my first time as an early adopter of anything — but it has been my first time with the iPhone, and because the iPhone is such a deeply personal device, I’ve been more critical of it than I was of the first iPad, or the first iBook, or the first Titanium Powerbook, which all had their peculiarities as well.

My iPhone 5 has scuffed chamfering.  Slight, but glaring at the same time.  I made several attempts to exchange it, but there were no better ones to be found at either of the two Apple retail stores in my state.  I live about two hours away from each of them, just in opposite directions, so I put a lot of time and effort into my quest for a flawless iPhone 5. I’m now convinced there just aren’t any, or that they are so rare that I should consider myself lucky my scuffs and dings aren’t any worse than they are.

Sounds terrible, but I don’t mean it that way.  It’s just a fact:  this whole anodized aluminum idea has a few drawbacks, and scuffing comes with the territory.  It would have been nice to have my new, never before opened iPhone 5 arrive completely unscuffed, but that was no to be.  I’ve gotten over it now.  I’ve bought lots of other items in my life that had little thisses and thats about them that weren’t absolutely smashingly perfect looking.  Still worked like a charm, as does my iPhone 5.  And we iPhone devotees are in it for more than the shell.  We are investing in a continuity of an experience that perfectly integrates all our other electronic devices and digital services.  It’s all one big package, and it can’t be replaced with just any old thing.

Today, I’ve finally made peace with my iPhone 5, scuffs, dings, and all.  I’ve decided that I love it.  I have loved every moment of using it since the moment it arrived.  The witty banter with Siri has never been better.  And I’m about to pick up a nice, minimalistic case for it, which I’ll review next week:  the Belkin Grip Candy Sheer in Teal and Silver.