After way too much rumor and speculation than a device releasing in a different color deserved, the long-rumored white iPhone 4 released yesterday, making customers who wanted a white iPhone and bloggers who didn’t have to write about its rumored existence happy the world over; that is, until people brought home their new white toy and found their previous iPhone case didn’t fit on the thing.
iPhone cases are manufactured to tight Apple specifications, which means most cases are the smallest a case can be while still fitting around the phone. It turns out the white iPhone 4 is .2 millimeters thicker than the regular iPhone 4, which doesn’t seem like a noteworthy amount, until one tries putting their favorite case over their new white device only to find the case doesn’t fit.
Engadget confirmed the change in thickness, taking a handy snapshot of a piece of mechanical pencil lead used to compare the thickness between the regular iPhone 4 and the white one:
As of this time, the Apple website doesn’t show a change in the usual 9.3mm thickness to the white’s 9.5mm thickness, though it makes the note: “Actual size and weight vary by configuration and manufacturing process.” Most likely the reason for the change in thickness, Apple added extra UV protection, as well as a few other tweaks, in order to cut down on unexpected bumps in the white brick road between the new white cover and the internal guttyworks. Basically, the white iPhone 4 will work better because it is .2 millimeters thicker, but that also means white phone adopters will have to adopt one last time and add a new case to their iPhone 4 family.
(via Engadget)
