Google now designs its Pixel smartphones with a protective case use in mind. It is 2024, and almost 90 percent of smartphone users use some sort of case to protect their devices from damage. The smartphone case makers now bring more functionality to the cases. Now, there are kickstands in some cases, a place to carry cards, and a magnetic charging coil to wirelessly charge the device.
However, Claude Zellweger Google Pixel design lead in an interview with Inverse discussed how the company designs its smartphones with the case use in mind starting from the Google Pixel 8 series. Last October, when Google launched its Pixel 8 smartphone series, the company boldly claimed that the “Pixel 8 and Pixel 8 Pro are the most beautiful phones we’ve ever made.”
Claude Zellweger further stated, “You need to always think about every aspect of the product. One of the important things is that 90% of people use cases. With the Pixel 8, seriously going forward, we’ve begun to design the product with the case together from the beginning. So just like color is not an afterthought, cases cannot be an afterthought, because you have to design it as such that it looks great and feels great.”
This seems a pretty good step from the company, but one thing that is worrying for most of the Pixel smartphone users is how fragile the Pixel smartphones are. He said “We’re designing phones to work better with cases,” and not say, “We’re designing phones to work better without cases.”
Nowadays, glass sandwich design is pretty much common for all the flagship devices these days. It is very difficult for users to find a smartphone above $700 that doesn’t come with a glass sandwich design.
The stats that Claude Zellweger claims that 90 percent of people use smartphones with cases seem to be pretty out of context. Users use smartphone cases because they know that their smartphones are fragile and they have to protect their investment. In reality, most people don’t want to use the smartphone case as they want to feel the design of the device.
