From the Editor’s Desk: In Any Case (Premium)

I got a haircut today. This is only notable because I hadn’t met the older woman who cut my hair, a delightfully blunt person who immediately started berating me for something, which I love. I don’t get this treatment enough in rural Pennsylvania—the people here are usually quieter, almost slower, and passive-aggressive, nothing like what I was used to growing up—and I quickly said, “You’re not from here, are you?” Which was true. Me realizing this and pointing it out like that delighted her, and she burst out laughing, probably surprised to discover someone who totally got her. As a transplant to the area, I get it.

I think I’ve written before about the immature, childish way in which men often interact with their friends. If not, let me be clear: It’s terrific, and a lifetime of regular abuse—lovingly delivered, of course—can help center you when don’t go your way out in the world. I mean, what are friends if not those who know you so well that they can home in on that one insecurity or weakness and then hammer on it at every opportunity? We need these people in our lives. This is basic science.

But this woman achieved something next level today by not knowing a thing about me and nonetheless immediately going for the jugular. She pointed out my horrifically self-trimmed neckline and made fun of it in the most outrageous fashion. Seriously, it was beautiful. I briefly worried that some locals might not react as positively as I had this unexpected dressing down. But I quickly realized she’d be fine: She can clearly handle herself.

My friends would love her, that’s for sure: We’re always looking for ways to twist the knife. It’s what I love about my brother, how quickly and effortlessly he does this. And we all have something. Whether it’s my friend Joe and his affectation for Blu-ray and other physical media in this digital age. The way we can so easily make Bob laugh so hard that he cries. Or the one-off comments none of us will let you forget, like “Don’t blame me, I was following orders.” Yes. We know. That’s what the Nazis said, too, Jeff.

It kind of takes on a life of its own. My wife has this skill, of course, which explains the 34 years of marriage. One example I’m sure I’ve given. We don’t celebrate holidays like St. Valentine’s Day, which we believe to be patently ludicrous. And so one year, I discovered a Valentine’s card on my pillow, which confused me. (Despite never celebrating this holiday, I also instantly doubted my memory of this, which is a separate issue.) When I told her I didn’t have a card for her because I thought we didn’t celebrate this, she said, “I thought I was doing the minimum, but once again you’ve proven me wrong.” And then she exploded in laughter because she had had some left-over cards she’d never use otherwise in a box and was literally waiting for this moment.

In my wife’s view, my big weakness is bags. I hate shopping, I literally reach a breaking point less than 30 minutes in any store, even stores I like such as electronics stores, where I have to just leave. But there is something about bags—all kinds of bags, from luggage to carry-on bags to laptop bags and backpacks of every kind, even to weird little cross-over man-bags I’d never buy or use—that stops me in my tracks. We can be walking along, talking normally, and I’ll see some bags in a display and silently stop and stare while she continues forward until she realizes what just happened. Curiously, this amuses her. Well, maybe not curiously.

I’ve spent a lot of time researching bags over the years. Worse, I’ve spent a lot of money buying bags, many of which I use briefly or sometimes not at all. The bags pile up until they’re exorcised in some everything-must-go spurt of spring-cleaning or decluttering. Or sometimes one is decent enough that she or, back in the day, one of the kids, would adopt it. Come to think of it, my entire family has used, and is still using, bags I bought but never used myself.

The teasing comes naturally. Perhaps I don’t want to go someplace or whatever, and my wife will suggest that perhaps they have bags there, just in case that puts it over the top. Or she’ll just point out that if it was a bag store, we wouldn’t even be having this conversation. Once, I dislocated my finger playing basketball and I drove myself to the hospital to get it snapped back in place, and because they had just opened a redesigned wing or whatever, I got a nice gift bag with a towel and several other items. She still uses that bag, but she was somewhat outraged that I went to this place just once and was rewarded for it.

Recently, my bag affectation has evolved into something I think of as “bag adjacent.” Thanks to apps like Instagram, especially, I’ve been exposed to items in ads I actually like, not just bags of various kinds, though, yes, that, too. But also things like low-profile wallets, of which I’ve bought more than a few. I tried for longer than made sense to make a too-small cardholder/wallet work because I was so taken with its minimalist design, but I could never get the credit cards out of it because it was so tight. My wife missed ripping into me when I finally replaced it with a slightly bigger alternative. Which I’ll need to replace soon because I stupidly got it in a tan color that gets and stays dirty too easily.

But this past Spring, I engaged in what can only be described as a gambling-like addiction to smartphone cases that was triggered in part by my experiences with the Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra. This is a big phone, what we used to call a phablet, and because time was tight at the time—we were about to travel internationally for five weeks when I ordered it—I got whatever case I could with it. But that case was so bulky, it made the phone feel even bigger. I grew to resent it, and by the time we got home, and I was ready to finish the review, I freed it from its case, realizing anew that it was actually pretty sleek and handsome, and I immediately wished I had gone in a different direction with the case.

It was too late for the Samsung, but looking over at the Google Pixel 8 Pro and iPhone 15 Pro Max I’m more interested in using, I figured I could at least do right by them. And therein lies a tale. Two, I guess.

The Pixel story is simpler and shorter. I’ve always hated Google’s cases, especially the nice looking but terrible in the hand fabric cases they’ve offered for Pixel. For expediency’s sake, I’ve been getting whatever the other case they offer when I buy a new Pixel, like the black Pixel 8 Pro Case I got in late 2023. It’s not scratchy and hard like the old fabric cases, but it’s terrible in its own way and it adds bulk. Man, I really miss the polycarbonate Lumias.

The thing is, there usually aren’t many good cases when a new phone launches. But now that it was March, several months later, I had more choices. I knew what I wanted: The thinnest possible case, something really low-profile. For some reason, I had the phrases “ballistic nylon” and “carbon fiber” in my brain, which is ridiculous.  (Ballistic carbon fiber? Is that a thing?) I Googled. I started seeing ads for case companies like Mous, Latercase, and a dozen others on Instagram.

But I quickly found what I wanted, a sleek, thin, wraparound case that is so tightly attached to the Pixel it seems painted on, and I’m worried how I’ll get it off without damaging the phone when it’s time to trade it in.

Amusingly, I soon thereafter came across a similar-looking case on Temu—a horrifically bad Chinese shopping site—that cost a bit more than $3, less than 10 percent the price of a quality case. I ordered it, intrigued, and can tell you only that it’s worth exactly $3 and is nothing other than a low-quality plastic knock-off of the case I did get. Its … amazingly terrible.

The Pixel was an easy problem to solve. I went down an entirely different rabbit hole with the iPhone.

Until this past year, Apple had long sold leather and silicone iPhone cases. But with the iPhone 15 family in late 2023, it went in a different direction because of environment something something or whatever: The leather was out, replaced by something more responsible called FineWoven. This isn’t vegan leather, an oxymoron if there ever was one, it’s some weird “microtwill” that Apple claims is durable and has a soft, suede-like feel. But anyone who’s ever used one will tell you that FineWoven is neither, and so I returned my preorder before it had even arrived, replacing it with a silicone Apple case.

Which, honestly, was OK. But given my success finding a thin, low-profile Pixel case, I wanted to similarly de-bulk my iPhone. And then I started looking.

My God. As it turns out, there is an entire industry out there just making cases for the iPhone. And some are pretty incredible. The range of choices is daunting, and I started simply trying to find something similar to the old leather Apple case. And over the course of, oh, I don’t know, a month, I’m embarrassed to say that I bought several cases online, none of which delivered on the original’s look or feel. They were all too bulky, and I tried a transparent case, a titanium-colored case that covered even the camera area, all kinds of things.

My wife finally noticed.

This doesn’t usually happen. Or maybe it does, and she usually doesn’t speak up. I don’t know. But some combination of packages arriving every single day and, I don’t know, perhaps the credit card bills she oversees, triggered a visit. “You’re, um, buying an awful lot of phone cases lately,” she finally observed. I brushed this off like any gambler would. I don’t have a problem, you have a problem. I haven’t found what I’m looking for, I told her.

But I had. Months earlier.

Nomad, which had apparently never gotten the leather-is-bad memo, started advertising a new kind of case, something between a skin and a real case, in early 2024. It’s called the Nomad Magnetic Leather Back, and it attaches magnetically (via MagSafe) to the back of the iPhone without covering the sides. This looked beautiful.

But it seemed dangerous. The thing is, an iPhone isn’t a polycarbonate Lumia. It’s an expensive titanium smartphone I can’t afford to dent, ding, or scratch. And I’m clumsy, like really clumsy. I walk into doorways with such force, you might sometimes believe the thing had jumped out at me. I had no business buying a magnetically connected leather back when what my iPhone really needs is protection from me, not the world around me.

But I had to have it. Unfortunately, by the time I had found this magical accessory, it was sold out. So I got on the waiting list and, well, waited. And then Nomad emailed me. I could order one. And so I did.

That was in February.

It never came. So I ordered those several iPhone cases noted above in the interim and was unimpressed. I kept looking around, kept opening Instagram just for the phone case ads that I was almost exclusively seeing by this point. And then, three months later, the leather back arrived out of nowhere. It was … interesting. In addition to the MagSafe magnetic connection, there are three “microsuction” areas to ensure a better seal. I wasn’t sure. I tried it out in the world a few times and it seemed … close.

And then I found Süti. Yes, with an umlaut. Süti also sells iPhone “backs” (PhoneBacks, they call them) that connect magnetically and don’t cover the sides of the phone. There are leather and silicone variants, and the latter come in all kinds of colors, including a hunter green variant that’s close to my favorite color. And so, yes, I ordered that too.

Here’s the good news. It stuck.

That is, I’ve stopped researching cases. The hunter green Süti PhoneBack connected nicely to my iPhone without needing microsuction support too.

It looks amazing, and people—some I know, many I do not—are always asking me about it because it’s so unusual. (This isn’t always great.) I’ve been using it since early May, scared to death I will drop the iPhone and scratch the exposed titanium, lowering its trade-in value.

But so far, so good: I brought two additional cases to Mexico in June, just in case, but I never needed them. The PhoneBack has worked out fine.

I mean, I have dropped the iPhone a few times, I am that clumsy. But it’s held up nicely with no noticeable damage, even when the PhoneBack goes spinning off like a boomerang to some corner of the room. I may have gotten over my fear of going caseless, at least to some degree. And I do love how clean the phone looks. We forget the beauty in our rush to protect these devices sometimes.

I was also delighted to discover that astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson doesn’t use a phone case at all, arguing instead that he admires how it looks and feels and that he’s trained himself not to drop it, ever. (I wish he had used a more intelligent venue to make this revelation, but we can’t have everything.) I can’t be so sure of myself. But that’s OK. It’s only money. Or something.

Anyway. I’ve got this mountain of iPhone 15 Pro Max cases that I’m still hiding from my wife: She’s brutal enough when I don’t deserve it, and this one is off the charts. And I made a promise to myself to maybe be a bit more discerning with this stuff going forward. But I like where it ended up.

I wonder if there’s a phone back for the Pixel …