Every iPhone now has one useful hardware feature that Samsung phones offer zero – 9to5Mac

This week, Apple will release the new iPhone 17e, which doubles the storage and adds the “magic of MagSafe” to the $599 iPhone 16e replacement. Apple’s decision to bring MagSafe to the latest iPhone device means that every iPhone now has a useful hardware feature that zero Samsung phones offer.

When Apple introduced the iPhone 16e a year ago, not including MagSafe on the budget model didn’t make much sense. The iPhone 16e replaced the iPhone SE, which technically never had MagSafe charging.

Now, for the first time since the iPhone 12 introduced MagSafe in October 2020, every new iPhone sold by Apple works with MagSafe — no case required.

The addition of a strong magnetic connection to the back of the iPhone enables the attachment of accessories such as wallets, STANDSAND battery packs. She too greatly improves wireless charging with the charging coil extension snapping into place.

Meanwhile, in Samsung land, reviewers call out the company for choosing not to put magnets in their even more premium interiors. Samsung Galaxy smartphones. The reason, they say, is because most people use a case.

last month, threshold asked a Samsung executive about the decision to continue not offering a feature like MagSafe in 2026:

I asked Samsung’s Won-Joon Choi, the executive in charge of research and development and operations for Samsung’s mobile business. He says the added thickness of the magnets is a bad trade-off to make because you’ll just be buying a box anyway.

“About 80 or 90 percent of people use a case, and magnetic cases are very popular these days,” he tells me.

Samsung would rather use that extra height to give the phone a bigger battery or make it thinner, he says.

That doesn’t mean Samsung isn’t looking for magnets. “We’re still doing a lot of research to make sure we don’t make any sacrifices inside the phone; when we get that, we’ll integrate,” he says.

Apple, of course, managed to cram MagSafe into an extremely slim case iPhone Air. Somehow they manage, and the battery life is completely serviceable.

Meanwhile, Samsung is leaving it up to case makers to standardize magnet placement, strength, and quality, which pretty much guarantees a mixed experience for accessories. It’s a much simpler story when the phone itself sets the bar for supporting magnetic accessories.