gdgt

I've owned one of the invisible shields for my touch pro, and while they are amazing, one of the problems is that they really make the surface a lot less smooth. With a display like the iPhone, make sure that you're not going to mind the "tacky" consistency of the invisible shield, cause it's going to end up grabbing your finger really easily, and making it difficult to smoothly move your finger across the screen. Another thing to consider is the fact that the iPhone is glass, and glass is extremely hard by itself; when you put that together with the fact that Apple has supposedly engineered their own glass to make it even harder, i really don't think you'll need scratch protection.

The bumper cases look like the perfect kind of case for the iPhone 4, since it'll protect you against shock, but it'll still keep the device looking good and won't lower the usability.

Hope that helps!

Is the invisible shield really necessary? I thought it was nearly impossible to scratch the screen of the iPhone.

When I originally got my 3GS, I put an InvisibleShield on it. However, I grew to dislike it for the same reason djcaston mentions above: the slight "tackiness" of the InvisibleShield detracts from the smoothness and usability of the touchscreen. I think the shield also degrades the visual clarity of the screen slightly. Also, you lose the benefit of the "oleophobic" coating that Apple puts on the glass; I found myself constantly needing to wipe the usual greasy buildup off the shield, which is not nearly as easy to do as it is off of Apple's specially coated glass.

So eventually, I peeled off the InvisibleShield and "went commando". :-) I was much happier with the look and feel of the phone this way. However, I will say that in the months that followed, the screen did pick up several small but noticeable scratches, despite me being pretty careful with the phone (never dropped it; kept it in a pants pocket with no other items). So I would say that while the 3GS screen may be somewhat scratch resistant, it is certainly not scratchproof.

Now that I've got an iPhone 4 on order, I'm contemplating the screen protection issue again. On the one hand, it would seem a shame to even slightly degrade the clarity and beauty of the Retina Display by putting a film on it. On the other hand, I don't know if I could live with myself if I ended up scratching it. :-) So I am really in a quandary about whether to go with a shield or not.

I guess a couple relevant questions would be:

1) Are there other screen protection products out there which are less "tacky" than the InvisibleShield?

2) Is there good reason to believe that the iPhone 4 screen will be *significantly* more scratch-resistant than the 3GS screen?