My iPhone Blue Up

I have a love/hate relationship with phone cases. I loved the original Apple leather cases; on the iPhone X, with its curved glass edge and the gap at the bottom of the screen, with leather that patinated over time, the leather case felt like a nice addition to the phone. It felt nice in the case, nice out of the case, and both made sense depending on the situation. I never could love the iPhone 13 Pro's leather case as much, with its sharper edges that were more prone to wear and that added a bump to the bottom of the screen right where you swipe up to go home.

And so, increasingly, I used my phone caseless. Living dangerously, I know, and yet it feels nicer in hand, and I grew accustomed to the somewhat-slimmer form factor without a case. The first year of my iPhone 13 Pro's life, it lived mostly in a case. The remaining three plus years, caseless.

I expected it to accumulate its share of scratches and the occasional dent. I didn't expect it to somehow go through a natural bluing process, though. Yet that's what seems to have happened.

Whether through heat (I always felt like it ran hotter than previous iPhones, especially when on 2 bars of cellular connection—even if on Wi-fi—or with the default sim and an eSim enabled), or through some interaction of the stainless steel with my hand, my black (officially, "Graphite") iPhone 13 over time took on a blue sheen that looks for all the world like a heat-driven bluing.

The color was the most prominent on the lower parts of the phone, less-so near the top, leading credence to my theory of it being touch-related. The sim card tray and buttons were unaffected.

In some ways, Apple's choice of color for this model already had a hint of blue; the rear glass glowed a shade blue when the flashlight was turned on. Perhaps there was a hint of blue in the "Physical Vapor Deposition" process used to color the stainless steel that shone through as the upper layers wore off?

I liked the effect, though, and was somewhat sad to lose that patina when finally upgrading after 4+ years of service. It's not every day you get a uniquely colored phone, after all. And strangely there's my long-term review of the iPhone 13 Pro: It was a perfectly good phone that lasted well, got a bit warm, and changed colors over time. It never elicited any of the feelings that the iPhone X did—it was just another iPhone, that turned blue.

Thoughts? @reply me on Twitter.