Nissan Scratch Shield iPhone Case

I know how to repair steering parts and I know how to diagnose a failed turbocharger, but I cannot figure out how to keep my iPhone case scratch free.  Yes, the whole reason why you buy a case is so that it gets the scratches instead of the phone, but I am a car guy so any type of scratches bothers me.  Well, it looks like it annoyed some other, more important car guys too.  Nissan has come out with an iPhone case that heals itself from scratches.

The Japanese car company says this case is the first one to have “self-healing technology.” At first this sounded unbelievable, like something out of a science fiction movie.  This is a phone case, not an alligator’s tail. Nevertheless, as I read more about the case it sounded more plausible.

The iPhone case’s outer layer of paint is the same scratch proof paint Nissan uses on some of their vehicles.  The active ingredient that makes this stuff magical is called polyrotaxane.  (It’s word like polyrotaxane that make me happy to be a writer and not a reporter. I couldn’t pronounce that correctly if you gave me a hundred tries.) When the case gets dinged the chemicals flexible structure reacts by reverting back to its original state.  This action makes it look like the case is healing itself.   Small scratches can take less than an hour to heal, while deeper cuts can take up to a week.

The case is currently on a trial run in Europe.  If tests go well and demand is high, Nissan will bring the iPhone case to market.  I am not sure why they are spending all this money on testing these cases.  They could have just given my 3 year old nephew one of these things for a day and found out its true power.