Good to hear! You'll be able to score some great deals on those over time
Got a tip for us?
Let us know
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
Apple Says 'Goodbye Leather' in New iPhone Ad Following Controversial Switch to 'FineWoven' Material
- Thread starter MacRumors
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
Good to hear! You'll be able to score some great deals on those over time
Haven’t used an Apple case other than the silicone. The top corner kept popping out and harder to remove from my pocket even though I wear relaxed fit. I use a clear case now. From what I read, the Apple leather case quality has been on the decline for awhile now. I’m going to a leather case next. I still use leather belts, wallets, boots, holsters and knife sheaths as well as single use plastic bags and straws.
I'm not sure anyone outside of Apple can say how well they sell but my anecdotal data suggests that many people buy them for convenience and trust. I don't use a case for my iPhone but Apple's leather sleeve for the iPad Pro was a great product. It's a shame Apple doesn't make sleeves anymore.
This is so dumb. Apple’s leather accessories were some of the best accessories on the market, and they just killed the entire product line in favor of literal garbage material.
6 months in, my finewoven case is showing wear, but no worse than prior leather or silicone cases did. I like it.
Exactly. There are now some extremely good synthetic leathers. I just picked up some headphones with “vegan leather” earcups that are so good that I simply cannot tell they are not animal skin. BMW’s “Veganza” leather now used in its European models is another example. Following an excellent-but-not-perfect synthetic predecessor, Veganza leather is a synthetic product that is every bit as good as the animal skin product it used to use. This stuff exists.
Also, note to Apple: I traditionally love Apple’s watch bands and own four leather ones. There is no way I buy a FineWoven band, and there is also no way I buy a new Apple Watch if I can’t get something suitably nice for it.
It is better for animals and for environment, FineWoven will get better. As now most users are whining as always, not saying it is still good as, but when something is not perfect users on tech forums get mad.
Congrats to Apple for having the courage to stop using leather and offering a vastly inferior alternative instead. So brave!
Getting rid of leather is a pretty extremist position frankly. The fine woven cases are crap.
Apple can claim it cares—and people can be led to believe that Apple cares— about the gays, or cows’ skin, or civil rights, or bamboo farms in rural wherever… but they singularly care about making money, and that is what drives every single decision. If you believe otherwise, you’ve misunderstood even the most fundamental aspects of the assignment.
It’s been well documented that there are truly no aspects to Tim Cook as a human being other than marketing Apple and making money. Through a veneer (and in Tim’s case, actual veneers) of the world’s best marketing, they lead you to believe these principles are the point. But the point is money.
Also, bring back that damn leather.
You can tell they really don't care about the negative reviews on their woven line LMAO
Gosh, you’re right. It’s important to replace a good product with a lower quality product and expect people to just take it and love it. Consume the product, consumer, and shut your mouth if you can tell it’s a worse product!
Darn those “tech people” expressing their opinions!
I think I have a sustainable and environmentally sound solution. The Apple Air Case. So thin and transparent that you won't feel it. As the marketing says, nothing comes between me and my iPhone. It is literally just Air, and just $49.99. In the meantime I think leather is not all that bad. Humans have been using it for a variety of tasks and products for hundreds of years. I think this is a wrong decision by Apple. However, I am sure there are plenty other case manufacturers that will still produce leather cases for those who want one.
Whatever Apple's real motivation for abandoning leather, it's a good thing. Humanity has long since exhausted slaughtering mammals to wear (or wrap devices) in their skin!!
There are so many alternative cases available that this hardly matters.
People love leather cases and FineWoven has been a disaster. Apple is gonna take the L on this one.
I doubt leather has an significant impact on the planet compared to Tim Cooks trips to China.
Putting out a product with a grammatically-incorrect name is not the play I'd make. It's like they're saying, "We may have trouble with simple adverbs, but building super-advanced computers? NOT A PROBLEM!"
I think the best way is to have a universal iphone chassis that will last 50 years , the problem resolved. Casing companies dont have to keep making different size , spec of cases just to fit different gen of iPhone. That way consumer can keep using the same case until it quits.
Inferior product. Bought once as I trusted name behind it! But never ever again!
Apple today shared a new iPhone ad called "Goodbye Leather" on its YouTube channel in the U.K., months after the company controversially switched from leather to a much-criticized "FineWoven" fabric material for accessories.
Apple discontinuing leather accessories for environmental benefits was a noble aspiration, but FineWoven accessories have been very poorly received. Just days after the first FineWoven cases were released for the iPhone, some customers and media outlets complained about the fabric exterior being prone to scratches and stains. A photo of a FineWoven case with a misaligned USB-C port cutout also surfaced.
The Wall Street Journal's Joanna Stern said her FineWoven case was "browning like a rotten banana" after five months of usage.
Image Credit: Joanna Stern/The Wall Street Journal
"The edges are peeling, the fabric is scratched up like an old CD and it's browning like a rotten banana," she wrote, in her Tech Things newsletter. "I've been waiting for the CDC to show up at my house to declare it a biomedical concern."
Apple has yet to comment on FineWoven criticism, and it remains to be seen if the company discontinues the line or improves the material in any way.
Thanks, Dylan McDonald!
Article Link: Apple Says 'Goodbye Leather' in New iPhone Ad Following Controversial Switch to 'FineWoven' Material
If they want to save the environment, make phones that are the same size every year. I had an iPhone 13 Pro, that I replaced with a 15 Pro, I had to get a new (leather) case because things didn't line up. Granted, the action button contributed greatly to this incompatibility, but I THINK it's pretty standard for cases to not fit from year to year. I'm not saying they shouldn't innovate, but they should give some consideration to the environmental impact of changing the geometry of the phone.