Yeh, I’ve had 3 iPhones and an iPad. Never used a case or anything to protect the glass. I think I detect a tiny scratch in my iPad, now that I’ve had it and abused it for well over a year. Unless you’re scraping it with a diamond-tiped drill bit, it’s going to be hard to really put any huge scratch in the glass.
But dropping it is another story. I’ve dropped my phone several times, with hardly anything but a scuff in the casing, except the last time… the glass cracked all the way across. It only costs around ~$10 or so to get replacement glass (or have a local service do it). NBD.
As an android user, I can’t stand this crap either. My original Droid has ridden in my pocket without so much as a screen protector sine it came out, and I can’t imagine why the heck you’d want to make it MORE bulky.
I used to carry a wallet and my old iPhone in its Otterbox case. Now I dumped both and I carry a slim leather book that contains me iPhone and ID and a couple of credit cards.
And the phone slips right out if I want to snap a picture.
I agree with the OP - why buy a beautiful tiny phone then uglify it and make it twice as big with a case. That’s why I don’t carry my phone in a case.
I do have a clear film over the entire phone. No problems for several years until i dropped it on pavement a couple of weeks ago and shattered the back of my iPhone4 . A replacement back was only $20 and it’s as good as new . Contracts are usually 2 years with the option of paying extra for an upgrade after one year. I’m willing to take my chances without a case.
My main concern is the camera lens getting scuffed. I use a bumper on the iPhone 4s. It doesn’t add much bulk at all but it gives it a little lip all around which keeps the device slightly off whatever surface.
Doh.. You got me beat. I dropped my 5 year old iPod (completely unprotected, the one with a hard drive) about 12’ onto pavement and it still works fine.
IPod’s had (IIRC) 32 Mb of RAM that would act as a cache. The disk would spin, fill the cache, then spin down and park the heads. Your devices survival most likely relied on that.
In an example of Apple’s ‘Be excellent’ customer service motto, my wife dropped her day-old iPod while getting out of the truck. It was ‘awake and doing stuff’ as she’d just unplugged it from the stereo. Fell to the ground, dead. Replaced without question at the Apple Store when I told them the truth.
Apple does make solid products and generally has great customer service. I agree, as I understand it the hard drive spins about 10-20 seconds every 15-20 minutes to load the buffer/cache. If you drop it while the hard drive is spinning it is almost certainly toast, otherwise they are very rugged.
. A replacement back was only $20 and it’s as good as new 
. Contracts are usually 2 years with the option of paying extra for an upgrade after one year. I’m willing to take my chances without a case.