IPhone Cafe

Having recently purchased my iPhone, it didn’t take me more than 12 hours to realize that I would need to protect my investment.  Apple does not provide insurance to replace a lost cell phone, and while it comes with a year-long warranty, I don’t know what conditions apply to qualify the phone for warranty repair.  If I accidently drop it, will they fix it?  The futuristic rectangle of a casing doesn’t fit snugly into the palm of my hand, so I’d rate the possibility of my dropping it as extremely high.  It doesn’t exactly look sturdy, either, so I don’t have a high confidence level in its ability to survive regular wear and tear.  Even if Apple will fix that kind of issue, am I supposed to ship off my iPhone to a factory and go phoneless for a month?  I don’t think so.

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The solution is obviously to get a case, and so I went to my nearest Apple store to do just that.  I’d never been before, though I’ve walked past the place a million times and glanced in.  I’ve always been intimidated by the crowds that populate the store no matter the time of day, and I can’t tell who works there and who’s just hanging out with the computers because they all look like they’d rather be home playing World of Warcraft.  I think they knew as soon as I walked in that I was not one of them, and everyone avoided me as I wandered around the displays looking for the iPhone cases.

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I don’t know what I was expecting–maybe a three or four options, as was the case at the AT&T store where I bought the phone.  The Apple store had literally dozens of iPhone cases, some leather, some plastic, some rubber, in all kinds of colors and styles.  I had no idea what kind to get, and the more I looked, the less I liked the options.  I wanted something that would protect the face plate from scratches, as well as from a drop, but quickly realized anything that covers the plate keeps you from being able to manipulate the touch screen.  Anything that requires you to pull the phone out of its case runs you the risk of dropping it in your rush to answer the phone.  Of the multitude of possibilities, none combined the padding and hard shell of a regular case with the ability to keep the faceplate open but somehow cushioned or otherwise protected against potential damage.  In the end I settled for a slimly profiled case with velvet lining, but I think I’m going to return it, since the Apple store has a 14-day return policy…funkyfresh

Before choosing the IPhone holster shown below, I went through several different holster brands.  

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In the end, I chose the InCase holster (shown in the picture below) because this holster hardware provides access to all IPhone controls without removing the phone from the holster. Answering a call or playing a tune, or other IPhone functions can be performed with the phone in holster.  This matters (to me) because of the IPhone’s contruction which is slippery smooth metal that falls from your hand in a snap if you’re not carefull. A leather case with access to phone controls reduces the chance that the phone will slip and then crash/burn on a ceramic floor.  

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Like I said, I tried out three holsters before the InCase. 

Holster #1 was lame. It came from the ATT store.  Downsides:  The case covered up IPhone controls and outputs and the belt clip was high profile.  Don’t get it.

Holster #2 was cool because it looked really good, and it was a horizontal holster, however the phone had to be removed before answering calls or doing pretty much anything. So, this wasn’t good for me ’cause I tended to drop the slippery IPhone. I was using this holster when I lost IPhone No. 1 in western North Dakota.

Holster #3 (below) is a good compromise.  All functions are accesable and the belt clip is low profile.

I’m now using the Incase holster below which comes in black, leather, demen, etc. It has a low profile belt clip. If only the belt clip were horizontal instead of verical.