Finding the best case and wallet for your new phone

I get a new iPhone most years and I tell myself it's for the photography aspects, but honestly, I'm ok buying a new pocket computer each year, especially one that is used more than any other computer I own.

I usually get the iPhone Pro in whatever cool color they're making it in that year, but ever since they shrank the bezel and went full glass on the fronts, I noticed every case I used would cover up 95% of the phone. You could barely see a hint of color near the camera lenses on the back, so it didn't really matter which phone color you got as your case was all you'd ever see.

I preferred Apple's silicon cases for the past decade and I've loved Apple's MagSafe wallets ever since they came out. But I didn't like how Apple's own wallet could only carry three cards, especially when the Apple Card came out and it was so thick it took up two spots.

A couple years back, I went all-in on the QuadLock lifestyle. You get a special case and then buy the charging mounts and I had one in my Jeep on the dash and one next to my bed and both gave me instant wireless charging whenever I plopped my phone onto them. Unfortunately, their special cases only come in black, and they're slightly thick and heavy and the sides of them are pretty slippery.

For my iPhone 16 Pro, I ordered it in the new "desert titanium" rose pinkish/tan color and decided I was going to fix a few of my problems by first taking a look at all the options. Then I realized there are far too many possibilities, so I turned to YouTube to try and sort it all out.

I watched a ton of videos about new iPhone accessories and two things stood out to me:

1. You can never tell if someone got a thing they are reviewing for free or was paid to mention it because very few people disclaim their sponsorships and when you watch a dozen videos you might see the same three companies constantly in the top five and you have to wonder just how much payola is in YouTube land. I remember the FCC set rules for what bloggers could say in the early 2000s pushing us to disclaim these things, so how is YouTube so lawless about it?
2. Whenever you're watching a "top ten" products roundup, it's important to ignore the final order and instead focus on what aspects are most important to your needs, and you will probably find what you like in a device that came in 5th or 9th place over whatever someone choses as the first/best.

In all my research, this was one of the best single roundup videos of everything about iPhone 16 accessories:

It's a pretty extensive review of many options. I jumped around on the subjects I cared about most: cases and wallets. If you want to "zoom in" this same creator has entire videos of just the cases or just the wallets that expand on what's in the video above to show even more options.

I wanted to see my new iPhone color so I figured it was time to try clear cases again. I've had an Apple clear case in the past but I've never really liked it, as it was often too plastic-y and slippery feeling.

I wanted something with good grip that I wouldn't drop so the Smartish iPhone Pro 16 clear MagSafe case was perfect for my needs. I can see the color of my phone through it, the white MagSafe bits are hidden by my MagSafe wallet, and the sides are heavily textured so they're easy to grip with your fingers. It's almost like skateboard grip tape on the sides, but way less harsh.

For magsafe wallets, I wanted something with a little more capacity than 2-3 cards and I was also fine ditching the Find My feature, since as long as I've had an Apple wallet it's been slightly annoying to get notifications that you dropped your wallet any time you took it off to wirelessly charge. The only time I did lose my wallet off my phone in my car one day, I was out of cell range so the wallet couldn't even give me an accurate location of where it separated, so I'm ok living without the Find My feature on a wallet (there are non-Apple wallets that have this feature if you still want it).

Looking through all the options, the Spigen MagSafe wallet in Rose Gold fabric checked all the boxes for me. It's got a grippy back that sticks to the phone and a stronger feeling magnet than Apple's own wallets. The fabric texture is nice and the color matches the rest of the phone. I can fit 1-2 more cards than my old Apple wallet, and it has a handy little hole at the bottom to "poke" your cards up to make them easier to fish out. I can tell the fabric option is going to get dirty over the next few months, but I don't mind when a thing that works well shows a little wear and tear, especially around tech.

So this is my setup and I'm pretty happy with it now. I get to enjoy the new phone's color, the phone won't slip out of my hands as other cases did, and the wallet does more than my previous ones while matching the color palette. This is the first time in almost a decade where I'm not using Apple's own cases or wallets because people are finally making tweaks that outperform what Apple is doing, but I really like where this ended up.