Admiring the beauty of an iPhone 'Aged to Perfection'

I like this a lot -- a blogger over at the design mind blog is admiring the look of gadgets, like the iPhone, that have been "Aged to Perfection." In other words, gadgets that are well-used and that carry the mark of being carried around. Maybe it's just because I'm an iPhone user that frets over every little mark and scratch my iPhone gets, but I'm surprised by just how good the beaten-up iPhone in the picture above looks. No, it's not as sleek or fresh as the beautiful pictures of new products Apple posts on its website, but it's beautiful in another way. As blogger Remy Labesque says about these gadgets, "their battle scars reveal the stuff they're actually made of."

An iPhone isn't exactly designed to age well -- it's not cheap or flimsy by any means, of course, but Apple's steady release and technology improvement schedule means that most iPhones sold back on day one probably aren't still in use today. Apple doesn't have a lot of reasons to change that, either -- those record profits don't keep rolling unless people keep buying new iPhones.

But I like Labesque's idea of a gadget designed not just to be new and shiny, but to be worn and well-used. Like a pair of old jeans or a solid leather wallet, there's value in having a powerful computer both when you wait in line on release day, and a few years later when it's been put through the paces.