Yeah, the Apple Watch Scratches—All Stainless Steel Watches Do

Apple Watch shipments may have been delayed until July, but those who have received their shiny, stainless steel versions have already taken to Twitter, Instagram, and Apple forums to show off some scratches and scuffs. Should a luxury item you paid hundreds of dollars for be so susceptible to scarring? As a matter of fact, it should.

You may have already seen some of the dramatic images of the stainless steel Apple Watch—that’s the mid-tier version, nestled between the cheaper aluminum-bodied Sport Watch and the if-you-have-to-ask gold Apple Watch Edition—that look like it’s been on the losing end of a knife fight. The implication is that the Watch is somehow defective. Expensive things aren’t supposed to lose so much luster, at least not quite so quickly.

Unfortunately, this only makes sense if you’ve never owned a high-end stainless steel watch before, or for that matter, any stainless steel anything.

The type of stainless steel Apple has deployed in the Watch is known as 316L. For all the ways Cupertino’s first wearable wants to revolutionize our wrist-worn gadgets, this is not one of them.

"316L is the most common type of stainless steel used for watches," explains Nick Manousos, Technical Editor for authoritative watch enthusiast site Hodinkee. "Chances are, if you are wearing a steel watch, it is made with 316L stainless steel."

That ubiquity stems from 316L’s unique properties, says Ali Erdemir, materials scientist and Distinguished Fellow at Argonne National Laboratory. According to Erdemir, "316L has very low carbon content, which makes it very resistant to corrosion… It always keeps this very nice, white, shiny color."

With this assurance that your gleaming heirloom timepiece (or in this case, digital device) won’t fade or rust, though, comes a trade-off: Whether it's sold by Apple or Montblanc, it’s soft enough to scratch.

It’s possible to use a form of stainless steel called 904L, which is both harder and even more resistant to corrosion than 316L, in a luxury watch. Rolex does. But as Manousos, points out, those advantages also make 904L more difficult to machine, and therefore more expensive to produce. The $550 stainless steel Apple Watch might cost more than the last Timex you owned, but it’s a pittance next to traditional high-end watches using many of the same materials.

Watchmakers more commonly offer protection by providing a finish on their stainless steel, in a process called work hardening. "Most watchmakers stamp or forge the cases of their watches, which hardens stainless steel," says Greg Koenig, product designer and co-founder of Luma Labs, but even that "clearly doesn’t bump the surface level up enough to be very scratch-resistant."

Manousos agrees that "the finishing of the steel is really what sets apart different brands." It’s also where Apple runs into some trouble next to some of its 316L competition. "The majority of the [Apple Watch] case has a smooth, curved, mirror-polished finish. While a mirror-polished finish looks nice, it makes a scratch very visible," Manousos explains, whereas "a brushed finish can hide or obscure a scratch a bit better."

So while scratches are likely to bless the surface any of stainless steel watch, they might be slightly more likely to do so on Apple’s version than those opting for more expensive solutions. A few hundred dollars is already a lot to ask for a smartwatch; a few thousand just to maintain a slightly smoother case would have been untenable.

The good news though? Your scratches, when they do happen, don’t have to be permanent. In fact, you may not want to get rid of them anyway.

All of the experts we talked to said that while you shouldn’t try to clear your Apple Watch of scratches on your own, it’s certainly possible to fix them.

"To repair a scratch in any metal, it is polished away, usually using a polishing paste that contains a small amount of abrasive," says Manousos. "The act of polishing removes a small amount of surface material until the scratch no longer is visible." It’s an easy enough job for a professional, although finding one comfortable enough to fiddle with an unfamiliar Apple Watch and all of its digital trappings might take some searching.

That’s the real concern when it comes to Apple Watch scratches, says Koenig, and maintenance in general: There simply doesn’t seem to be much support built in.

"Most mechanical watches have a maintenance interval of five years… In talking with Apple Retail employees, there seems [to be] absolutely no plan or expectation to offer any similar service to the Apple Watch," Koenig explains. "Apple has no provisions in place for polishing or servicing the Watch or Watch Edition models. For comparison; Rolex and Omega offer guides, special tools, and even week-long classes to their certified watchmakers on how to properly polish the intricate details of their cases and bracelets (often, the designs will mix polished and brushed surfaces that can be tricky to mask and blend)." With the Apple Watch, so far at least, it appears that you’re on your own.

It’s possible, of course, that there’s no five-year maintenance plan—or something like it—simply because nobody expects an Apple Watch to last that long, any more than you expect to see someone pull out an iPhone 4 or original iPad on the subway today. Unlike a time-tested mechanical timepiece, the Apple Watch is a very small computer, and very small computers suffer battery death and firmware obsolescence and a host of other inconveniences that grind them to a halt. If you do scratch your Apple Watch and choose not to fix it, you’ll likely only have to live with it for a few years, not several generations.

That’s all assuming a few scuffs are a bad thing. In the world of high-end watches, some wear and tear indicates legitimacy.

"They show that the watch has been worn and appreciated," says Manousos. Not only are scratches "totally normal," having them "shows that the watch is authentic, original, and has lived life as it should."

If after all of those assurances you’re still concerned about scarring your shiny new wristable, though, you’re in luck. The $350 Apple Watch Sport forgoes 316L stainless steel for 7000 series anodized aluminum, which Koenig points out is much more scratch-resistant than its pricier sibling, though any nicks to the anodized layer will end up being more noticeable. The bigger trade-off on the Sport Watch, though, might be its screen. Whereas the stainless steel Watch uses industry-standard, highly resistant sapphire crystal, the Sport Watch features "lightweight aluminosilicate glass," a much more injury-prone material.

Like, well, everything, it all comes down to trade-offs. Would you like a clear screen or a clear case? Do you like the weathered look, or would you prefer something appear as-new for as long as possible? If the latter, perhaps it’s wise to wait on the Apple Watch altogether, at least until they switch to adamantium.