Finally giving in to my desire to upgrade to Series 4, concerned about stainless micro abrasions

For those of you have a Stainless Apple Watch, how noticeable are the micro abrasions on the case over time? My Aluminum AW’s have all had various dings and abrasions on them, and I want the stainless watch but don’t want to pay a premium if the case isn’t going to be more durable or at least have a way to buff out abrasions on the case.

Thoughts? Pics you can share of older (at least a year) stainless AW’s?

In the watch world wear marks are a good thing.

And Apple’s design team has, ever since the Steve Jobs era, aimed at making products that do become worn and customized, long following the aesthetic concept of wabi-sabi.

If you don’t think that pic is gorgeous…

When Apple introduced the iPod mini word was that Apple thought it remained too pristine with use, and it was discontinued less than 2 years later in favor of the very scratchable iPod Nano.

That said, the stainless Apple Watch can get dinged up, but it’s easy to buff out most light scratches. (Not that I advise it.)


Funnily enough, the iPhone referenced looks almost EXACTLY how my first iPhone did, I really loved the look of it.

I own several nice watches that have “character” on them, so I definitely appreciate the dings and scratches over time. I use a buff such as this one for the rest of my silver jewelry and it seems to do a nice job, so I’m curious if I can use it on the Stainless AW and what my exceptions should be for amount of abrasion activity I can expect over time. I work in a science lab, so there’s not a lot of potential for material abuse.

I’ve heard that this isn’t possible - you can’t use AppleCare if the problem is purely cosmetic, only if it’s actually broken. So a smashed screen they’d fix, but not a scratched one.

When I got the Series 0, the Apple rep I was working with told me “scratches won’t get you a replacement, but if you accidentally dropped it on the floor from a significant height…” and winked at me lol

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