The iPhone is a typical piece of Ive design: an
austere, abstract, platonic-looking form that
somehow also manages to feel warm and organic and
ergonomic. Unlike my phone. He picks it up and
points out four little nubbins on the back. "Your
phone's got feet on," he says, not unkindly. "Why
would anybody put feet on a phone?" Ive has the
answer, of course: "It raises the speaker on the
back off the table. But the right solution is to
put the speaker in the right place in the first
place. That's why our speaker isn't on the bottom,
so you can have it on the table, and you don't
need feet." Sure enough, no feet toe the iPhone's
smooth lines.
If you want little rubber feets on the back of your iPhone, put little rubber feets on the back of your iPhone. The back of the iPhone is, properly, inert and ambivalent to your modifications.
Agreed. Thus far, every time my iPhone 4 has fallen has been a time I put it on an ever-so-slightly tilted surface and it seemingly slides under its own power. I'd be fine with a little more friction on the glass backing.
