Apple fanboys have taken to the worldwide wibble to complain that while titanium made the latest flagships much lighter they were a doddle to scratch and scruff.

This means that users will have to buy a protective case, which means no one will see the nice shiny titanium, and Apple might as well have used plastic.

Apparently, the marks are more prominent on darker colours, but Apple fanboys will unconsciously know they are there on lighter colours, too.

The Midnight finish of the 15-inch and 13-inch MacBook Air was also prone to scratches, but since both portable Macs feature a unibody aluminium chassis, it can hold up its paint job well enough, unlike titanium.

Apple should have known better. Titanium alloy was tried on the first-generation Apple Watch Ultra, where countless reports mentioned that the wearable could not withstand minor bumps against surfaces or scratches from objects such as keys. Apple promised during its keynote that the Grade 5 titanium used on the iPhone 15 Pro and iPhone 15 Pro Max is protected with physical vapour deposition (PVD) coating to help hold the soft material against scratches; however, this appears to be faith-based more than anything.

The problem for Apple could be if it has to honour warranties of easily scratched finishes of the iPhone 15 Pro and iPhone 15 Pro Max by offering immediate replacements or if employees have been instructed to cobble together a dog-ate-my-homework excuse so that users are gaslit into believing that the problem was their fault.