5 Strategist Staffers Replaced Their Grody Apple iPhone Cases With the Otterbox Symmetry
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The first thing I did upon unwrapping my new iPhone 16 Pro in November was put it in a case. Specifically, I gotApple’s own Silicone Casebecause it promised to be precisely engineered to protect this $1,100 brick of glass and titanium, down to the touch-conductive sapphire-glass camera-control-button cover. At $50, it was more than I wanted to spend, but the svelte look and bold blue color swayed me. It fit exactly how I expected it to and looked as elegant as I had envisioned, but it was a magnet for dust and grime, and it wasn’t long before the peeling began.
It started along the screen’s raised border: tiny fissures in the rubbery top layer revealing the plastic beneath. It was barely noticeable until one day, an entire corner disappeared as if nibbled away by a mouse — in less than four months since I first put it on. I learned I wasn’t alone when I asked my colleagues about this issue. Strategist writer Brenley Goertzen’s iPhone 15 Pro case had failed similarly in one corner after a short while. Senior editor Ailbhe Malone’s iPhone 13 Mini case was okay for a couple of years until the silicone started peeling off in layers with each passing day, “like an elderly Elastoplast.” I decided I could not passively accept that fate.
The one feature Apple unquestionably got right on the Silicone Case was the tactile, responsive feel of the buttons — including the touch-sensitive camera-control button for zooming. As a new feature for the 16 Pro, many non-Apple cases either didn’t support the touch controls or used an awkward-looking cutout to expose the button without protecting it. The few non-Apple options on Amazon that did claim to support it were from brands I’d never heard of — a personal deal-breaker when it comes to protecting such an essential piece of equipment.
Finally, I found the latestOtterbox Symmetry. This minimalist clear case is nothing like the bulky, Realtree-printed Otterboxes of yore. It was simply a tight-fitting, elegant-looking case, with just enough protection to break a light fall onto hard surfaces from up to four to five feet; it’s evencertified to meet military standardsin this respect. Once installed, the buttons actually felt “clickier” than they had on my Apple case. And while the original Symmetry for iPhone 16 Pro used an ugly cutout for camera control, this new version had a sapphire button cover that worked just as well as Apple’s for swiping to zoom.MagSafe chargingwas also uninhibited.
When I brought my findings to my co-workers, I was pleasantly surprised to learn they’d arrived separately at this same conclusion. “I like that it never looks dirtyeverand doesn’t add too much extra surface to the phone,” said managing editor Kelsie Schrader of her iPhone 15 Symmetry. Senior writer Liza Corsillo echoed my appreciation for the buttons’ tactility. And Goertzen likes that it’s “sleek and nice to hold” yet highly protective. “Last week, I slipped while walking around a pool and landed halfway in the water, with my phone catching my fall against the deck,” she recalled. “While the screen protector cracked slightly on impact, the Symmetry’s raised edges kept my actual phone safe and undamaged.” Perhaps most important, across multiple years of combined ownership spanning several generations of iPhone, no one had experienced any hint of peeling.
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