Apple Tweaks Demo Chargers to Protect iPhone 17 Pro Finish
Michael Steeber / Twitter
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It wasn’t long after Apple’s sleek new aluminum-clad iPhone 17 Pro models arrived in stores last month that many noticed them turning into scratch and scuff magnets. Following multiple reports of this phenomenon, Apple called out worn MagSafe charging and display stands as the cause, and now it looks like it’s doing something about it.
While new iPhone models undoubtedly get handled a lot in Apple Stores, launch day visitors were still surprised to discover that the deep blue iPhone 17 Pro models showed a surprising number of blemishes after only a few hours on display, while the cosmic orange and silver appeared to be comparatively unscathed. The space black iPhone Air shared some of the same marks, but these didn’t appear in any shade of the standard iPhone 17.
I saw this phenomenon myself during launch weekend, but it quickly became clear from looking at the affected display models that there were actually two different things going on.
The aluminum iPhone 17 Pro and iPhone 17 Pro Max models exhibited small scratches on the body, particularly around the camera plateau, and a circular mark on the back glass that appeared to be from the MagSafe charger it had been sitting on for most of the day.
iPhone Air models were unscratched, thanks to their titanium frames and all-glass backs, but the space black ones showed the same ringed MagSafe mark on the glass.
Scratches in an anodized aluminum will reveal the natural metallic color underneath, so it wasn’t too surprising that the deep blue iPhone 17 Pro models had more visible scratches than the lighter colors.
However, the MagSafe ring mark was clearly something different. This was on the Ceramic Shield 2 glass now used on the back of this year’s higher-end models, and the fact that the iPhone 17 — which uses standard glass — wasn’t showing these scuffs suggests that it’s something unique to the more durable glass formation.
These are the marks that Apple was referring to when it declared its worn MagSafe chargers to be the culprits. It noted that these resulted from materials transferred from the charging ring onto the glass and were not permanent, but could be removed with proper cleaning. I couldn’t get rid of them by simply wiping them off any of the iPhones I tried, but that’s not to say a bit of water wouldn’t have helped.
Nevertheless, the problem doesn’t seem especially serious, but Apple naturally wants its new iPhones displayed in the best light possible, so it’s modifying the MagSafe charging and display stands to treat their docked iPhones more gently.
French site Consomac, which was one of the first to spot and report on the issue on launch day, reports that at least one Apple Store has made an “emergency” adjustment by adding a small silicone ring to the existing chargers. The report suggests this is a temporary measure, and Apple will likely install entirely new chargers further down the road. It’s understandable that even for Apple, manufacturing and distributing new hardware to hundreds of stores will take time.
The current crop of MagSafe display stands appeared four years ago, shortly before the launch of the iPhone 13 lineup, the second set of models to support MagSafe docking and charging. The new design was first spotted at the Apple Park Visitor Center, and it took several months before we began seeing it spread out to a broader range of Apple Stores. If history is any indication, Apple’s next generation of in-store chargers will likely look as polished as the devices they’re meant to showcase.
