The biggest downside to using a screen protector has always been losing the feel of Apple’s glass iPhone screens. As good as screen protectors are — a necessary evil in my opinion — it’s hard to beat the feel of clean glass. Fortunately, screen protector manufacturers are starting to produce tempered glass screen protectors.
The latest I’ve tried is the TYLT ALĪN Glass Screen Protector.
The TYLT ALĪN series includes a special alignment tool. Aside from the cute “ALĪN” name, the alignment tool helps a regular person, in the comfort of their own home, install the screen protector without getting it hopelessly misaligned . . . and then dirty with dust during the effort to peel it back up and fix it.
In fact, installation is easy: Clean the screen with the included cloth, apply and remove the included “dust tape” to grab any tiny pieces of dust from the screen, place your iPhone 6 into the plastic ALĪN tool, peel off the protective bottom layer from the glass screen protector, line up the bottom of the glass with the ALĪN tool, slightly bend and push the bottom area of the glass screen protector to your iPhone’s screen . . . and watch it completely adhere to your iPhone’s screen — without annoying bubbles.
Works pretty well.
In my installation, I’m not sure if I fully seated the ALĪN tool or not because I could see that the glass screen protector was slightly out of alignment with the long edge of my iPhone 6. Rather than freak out, I checked its position against the home button, made a slight adjustment along the edge, and boom, let it adhere. So, while the tool certainly helps, it’s not necessarily foolproof.
If you pay attention, though, most anyone should be able to install the TYLT ALĪN Glass Screen Protector with good results.
One note: Because the outer edges of the iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus are curved, the screen protector only covers the flat portion of the iPhone 6 screen, leaving the curved edges exposed. Since pretty much every screen protector has to face the same laws of physics, I recommend a good iPhone 6 case that will help protect these curved edges.
But How Does the TYLT ALĪN Glass Screen Protector FEEL?
Again, why use glass to protect glass? The feel. And man oh man, I do like how it feels — just like a naked iPhone. The only downside is that glass screen protectors are a little thicker than non-glass types. I could feel the difference on the home button — it was a little more recessed — but it wasn’t enough to bother me, nor did it seem to affect Touch ID. As for clarity, the TYLT ALĪN Glass Screen Protector is wicked sharp (but does not cut glare). Highly recommended.
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