It might be difficult to remember now, but Apple once had high hopes for a plastic iPhone. The company made a big deal out of 2013’s iPhone 5c, giving it ample promotion alongside the 5s. It was the company’s first device to address the most serious issue with iPhones up to that point, which was the absence of a budget option. If you wanted an affordable smartphone, your only choices up until that point were to find a used iPhone or switch to Android.
Within a single generation, though, Apple gave up on the concept — there was no iPhone 6c. That was frustrating to some people, including myself, in spite of my being able to snag a regular iPhone 6 through my job. Unfortunately, I doubt that Apple is going to attempt another plastic phone again in the foreseeable future. There are a variety of factors working against it.
What’s so appealing about a plastic iPhone?
Striking the perfect balance
The biggest appeal is the one that led Apple to get into the game: cost. Plastic is not only one of the cheapest materials you can find, but easier to manufacture than aluminum or titanium. The gap may only be a few dollars per unit — yet when you’re manufacturing millions of units, that adds up. Keeping material prices down means you offer a cheaper product to consumers and still turn a profit, and if there’s one thing Apple executives are obsessed with, it’s clinging to profit margins with a death grip.
There’s more to the story than pricing, naturally. Two practical benefits are weight and durability. Being less dense than aluminum, plastic is potentially very light, which can make a phone more comfortable to hold for long stretches of time. Arguably, that’s even more important in 2026 than it was in 2013. Some current phones are close to 7 inches, and people spend hours with them every day, whether they’re working, playing, navigating, or just doomscrolling.
As for durability, that depends on the kind of plastic, but the sort that was used in the iPhone 5c is tough. While it might scratch, it’s not going to crack. More importantly, it doesn’t bend or dent, both of which are hazards with aluminum phones. In fact, the only real risk is that the plastic might cause a device to bounce and land screen down.
There are aesthetic advantages to plastic, too. Notably, the 5c shipped in vibrant shades of blue, green, yellow, and pink, made possible by the ease of producing colored plastic. It took many years before Apple started shipping metal phones in anything but white, silver, or black, and even today, most iPhone colors are muted.
So why isn’t a new plastic iPhone in the cards?
Priorities and advances
Apple’s never explained why plastic was abandoned, and based solely on the sales of the iPhone 5c, it doesn’t make sense. Although the device didn’t sell as well as the iPhone 5s, it was still one of the top three phones at all the major US carriers between September and November 2013, according to Canaccord Genuity data cited by AppleInsider. The only real challenger was Samsung’s similarly-priced Galaxy S4.
My educated guess is that sales fell off a cliff. I can’t remember seeing that many 5c users in the wild, and it’s rare for any company to ditch a successful product concept just a year later, much less Apple. Consider that it tried two generations of iPhone mini, despite data suggesting that the first generation was never very popular.
If sales did suddenly plummet, I can understand why. It wasn’t just plastic that made the 5c cheap. It included most of the same specs as 2012’s iPhone 5, which was a big deal at a time when every last ounce of processor power and camera resolution mattered. This made it unappealing to Apple’s core audience (no pun intended), and I wonder if executives didn’t take away the wrong lesson as a result.
Plastic doesn’t align with a longtime focus across all Apple product lines: the premium market, which here in the real world translates to luxury and professional buyers.
Regardless, plastic doesn’t align with a longtime focus across all Apple product lines: the “premium” market, which here in the real world translates to “luxury and professional buyers.” You might think Apple would want to capture every sale possible, but not so. Targeting budget shoppers means lower profit margins, whereas someone willing to spend extra to get a 48- megapixel telephoto camera isn’t going to care as much about whether a phone is $50 or $100 more than it needs to be.
Premium buyers expect premium features across the board. A plastic phone isn’t automatically a budget model, but the public at large has been conditioned to think of metal and glass as being inherently better, no matter how common it is to jam a phone into a case. If this year’s iPhone 18 Pro shipped in plastic, Apple’s marketing department would have to work overtime to sell its design, unless perhaps it was substantially cheaper.
Weight and durability issues, meanwhile, are increasingly moot. The 6.5-inch iPhone Air is just 165 grams (5.82 ounces), barely any heavier than the 5c was (132 grams, 4.65 ounces), while being surprisingly durable thanks to the combination of titanium and Ceramic Shield glass. The Air has met with weak sales of its own, but mostly because Apple decided to charge $1,000 for a device with weaker camera and battery specs than the $800 iPhone 17 — and it’s not like anyone was complaining about the weight or durability of the iPhone 16.
Speaking of which, if you do want a budget iPhone, Apple has not one but two metal/glass options for you: the 16 and this spring’s iPhone 17e. The latter starts at $599, and both devices are plenty durable inside a case.
The future of the future
Could Apple change its mind someday?
A course correction seems pretty unlikely. Apple is staying clear of plastic in the few other budget products it does have, some examples being the Apple Watch SE and MacBook Neo. Executives haven’t signaled any interest in a different path, either.
If anything, aside from the Neo, the company seems to be headed in the opposite direction. The company is rumored to have several new “Ultra” products planned, among them a touchscreen MacBook, and most relevant to this discussion, the first foldable iPhone. The latter could cost upwards of $2,000 when it ships this year, putting it well out of reach for the average buyer.
If the foldable iPhone flops, it might force the company to reevaluate its priorities, much as it did after the 5c.
It’ll be interesting to see how well it does. If it succeeds, Apple will probably stay on its current trajectory. If it flops, it might force the company to reevaluate its priorities, much as it did after the 5c. There is, presumably, a ceiling on how much iPhone fans are willing to pay, even if that limit hasn’t been discovered so far.
