OK I can add to this. I have an iPhone 14 Pro Max, my 14th iPhone as I have owned them all from day one.
It’s scratched. A lot.
Im very careful with my phones, and haven’t required a case or screen protector for at least the last 4 or 5 phones I’ve had.
my wife has my previous iPhone 13 Pro Max, which is a year older, treated exactly the same as my 14 and not scratched at all.
I raised this with Apple support a few days ago, They recommended a 50mile round to my nearest Apple Store.
That was today.
the ‘genius’ I spoke to (their term not mine) said two interesting things.
- Apple/Corning have traded shatter resistance for scratch resistance with iPhone 14 screens, so whilst the screen is much less likely to shatter if dropped, it is also much MORE likely to scratch.
- I know I never put anything else in the pocket my phone is in, my ‘genius’ told me a grain of sand in my pocket is enough to cause the scratches I have.
Mainly though, they said this is cosmetic damage and get lost.
No one could explain why I was advised to drive 50 miles and waste 2 hours of my life to hear this.
in summary, if you treat an iPhone 14 Promax carefully, like your previous phones that were fine, this one won’t be.
it REQUIRES a screen protector. In which case for a phone at this price point I would argue it should be factory supplied and fitted properly in a dust-free environment.
At the very least, contrary to the false claim on the Apple website that implies improved scratch and chip resistance they should warn this phone may not be as scratch resistant as previous models due to improved shatter performance.
I’m not arguing that improved shatter resistance at the expense of scratch resistance is bad or wrong, just that Apple need to tell us this before a £1,400 phone is scratched - not after.
had I know this, I would of course have fitted a screen protector on purchase, up to now I never needed one and that is my point.
Im not done with this and have raised a complaint with Apple about this.
BTW two separate people from Apple today (one in the store, one on phone support) both said the same thing about shatter v scratch, so it’s obviously widely known to Apple staff, who knew this in user land? I certainly didn’t.
[Edited by Moderator]
