“Predicting what Apple has up its sleeves is a cottage industry on the Internet and sometimes the best clues comes from the company’s suppliers,” Daisuke Wakabayashi reports for The Wall Street Journal. “Corning just supplied one.”
“An iWatch and a curved iPhone with a bigger display are among the most-mentioned possible products for Apple’s pipeline this year,” Wakabayashi reports. “Both are expected to require a curved display, a feature currently missing from Apple’s existing line-up. That’s why it’s noteworthy that Corning, a key supplier of Apple and many other smartphone and tablet manufacturers, has announced that it plans to start mass-producing a curved version of its scratch- and crack-resistant Gorilla Glass in 2014.”
“Scott Forester, Corning’s product manager for 3D-Shaped Gorilla Glass, said its new production technique allows the curved glass to be manufactured more efficiently and cheaply,” Wakabayashi reports. “He declined to comment on whether Apple would be a customer for the new glass. But he said that many manufacturers have been asking for the technology for years as something that could enable new form-factors for mobile devices. Corning’s announcement comes a few months after Apple announced plans to build a new component manufacturing plant in Arizona producing sapphire. Sapphire is gaining popularity in portable devices because it is transparent and more scratch-resistant than glass. A patent filing from Apple earlier this year indicated that sapphire could be used to create scratch-resistant displays.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Leave the run-of-the-mill, inferior materials to the also-rans.
We want our superior Apple devices to be constructed of virtually indestructible synthetic sapphire and Liquidmetal (exclusively Apple’s in perpetuity)!
Related articles:
Apple patent application reveals sapphire flexible transparent display devices created with Liquidmetal – December 19, 2013
iPhone 6 rumors: Curved display, Liquidmetal, sapphire glass, and more – December 11, 2013
Apple spends over half a billion dollars on rumored iPhone 6 sapphire glass feature – November 29, 2013
Arizona OKs tax break for Apple sapphire glass plant – November 20, 2013
Curved, maybe like something to fit nicely on a wrist…
Of course I’m referring to handcuffs.
Custom curvatures to allow iPhones to conform to lumpy heads of Apple fanboys.
Wouldn’t work no two are the same, mind you microsofties and droids heads are very predictable in being square and empty as just proved.
Curved glass sounds like a very bad idea for a smartphone. The edges and corners of iPhones (and iPads) aren’t durable enough as it is.
If you’re that clumsy get some protection to cover your phone; something your daddy should have thought of before he knocked up your momma.
Rough crowd.
We’ll be here all week;
Be sure to try the veal
A curved surface on a iPhone would conform to your cheek wouldn’t it? Might also fit the back pocket of jeans.
Wouldn’t it depend on whether the glass was concave or convex, and whether you have hollow, sunken cheeks or the fat, chubby kind like Rosie O’Donnell?
The back pocket just seems like such a bad idea. I know lots of folks do it, but it just seems… stupid, actually. There’s no nicer way to say it. Do you literally never sit without taking it out? Dates? Business meetings? In front of the TV? I guess it could then be incredibly inconsiderate and/or overly addicted, but still seems likely stupid just the same.
Obviously many don’t share my opinions.
The curved edge of the glass could be covered by a curved frame made of another, edge-tougher material.
A concave iPhone screen would reduce reflections and fit more snugly in your pocket. Subtlety is the key – check out this plausible concept…
Someone needs to come up with a flexible material to accommodate excessively sloped heads sported by most fandroids.
Just base it on a Neanderthal skull, though in reality they were considerably brighter than the average Droid by all available evidence.
I don’t understand the appeal of a curved screen on an iPhone, can someone explain?
The only notable benefit of curved displays (horizontally or vertically) is that the screen is much less prone to scratching if you put your phone on its face, or it falls face-first.
Bendability would improve its ability to resist damage upon falls, however way it falls.
Allows the introduction of a head band pouch.
Makes it less likely to make butt calls.
Much more comfortable in the cleavage.
What most people are missing is the curved glass becomes a lens. What happens is the new iPhone 6 is still the same size as the iPhone 5, 5c and 5s but with curved glass it looks like a big ass 7″ by 4″ phablet that still fits in your pocket.
The Android crowd will switch big time when they see one.
I must be getting old. Seems today’s know-all-young’uns only think Apple makes iPhones, which doesn’t seem like a real practical place to put curved glass. I remember a time when Apple made big monitors, which would make a ton ‘o sense to be curved. Even more so if they made a really huge monitor, maybe one that could receive broadcast signals even.
In my day the glass was opaque and we had to break it to see. All these young whipper-snappers are just outright spoiled by this newfangled clear stuff. Now they’re talking about curved glass! Tarnations, what won’t they think of next!
One thing I like: Convex curved glass. It indeed lets companies create ‘wearable’ tech that fits the convex curves of the human body. I suspect it will be strong enough that the resulting jutted surface, facing the world’s bumpy stuff within a smaller surface area, will be able to typically not scratch or crack. But this is new territory, so as usual: We Will See.
One thing I don’t get: Concave curved glass. What you get is a concentration of light via reflection that is going to make for annoyance. I don’t want any concave curved TV that’s going to make lamps in the room into bright point light sources upon viewing. You want to diffuse reflected light, NOT concentrate it! I suspect this will become more obvious in the market. Those companies who stubbornly foist concave glass will probably move to a matt surface on the glass, rather than glossy, in order to diminish the concentrated light source reflection effect.
Meanwhile: Concave screens in movie theaters have zero problems. They’re never glossy in the first place, and the only source of light is the projector. Projection TVs with concave surfaces would be great as well! It’s just the concave, reflecting TV screens I don’t believe to be a good idea.
Ever hear of AR coatings? You know, the coatings on spectacles that give that green-ish ‘flash’, designed to remove distracting reflections?
Cornell have demonstrated an AR coating on Gorilla Glass that makes it almost invisible.
I certainly remember it being posted up on here, I’m surprised nobody else seems to mention anti-reflective coatings on consumer electronic devices.
No, I’m no expert on coatings. I know some of them are terrific.
Cornell? Corning perhaps?
Yes, the curvature may allow it to possess some aerodynamic lift and if dropped would actually glide to the ground preventing damage.
Apple Bought $578M Worth Of Sapphire In Advance…
http://techcrunch.com/2013/11/08/why-apple-bought-578m-worth-of-sapphire-in-advance/
These people are soooo behind what’s really going on.
The iGlobe a globe you wear around your head. It projects an image on the outside of what you look (or want to look) like. No more a need for shaving, brushing hair, nor makeup for the ladies. You’ll always look good in the iGlobe.
Don’t limit yourself to frontal recording, with the iGlobe you’ll be able to observe and record 41250 square degrees of your sphere at once, (a few degrees less when you are wearing it.
Butt weight, there’s more. With the iGlobe’s patented privacy mode featuring quantatwanna encryption, no one will know who you are talking to or what you are saying, not even for a satellite.
Yes, Apple, bringing back civilized privacy back to those who have been violated by terrorists.
It will show up on the next great iDevice: the Fridge/Toaster/Dishwasher/Laundry machine. It also has a paint sprayer attachment for painting the kitchen.
Come on people. Quit putting every little patent together in ridiculous combinations to guess the next iDevice.
“Scott Forester, Corning’s product manager”
Wait…. THAT Scott Forester?
That’s rather funny, I didn’t catch that one.
Just needs one more “r”
iMug. Read the news, chat with friends and sip your coffee, all at the same time.
My guess is that sapphire will be used for smaller, wearable devices, with gorilla glass used for larger devices, and likewise for liquid metal.
There is a complex set of layers to a smartphone display. The final layer of sapphire is only the final thin layer.
I suspect that final thin layer (I don’t know the thickness) is bonded to the next layer underneath to add strength, as sapphire itself does not have the toughness of Gorilla Glass. Making a thick layer of sapphire (clear aluminum oxide) is uneconomical, so that layer will be optimized to just impart the required scratch resistance.
Apple should just buy Corning.
Agree! NY State could use some Apple tech jobs. NY has that new Tax Free Zone buisness thing now, (I think it passed). Cuomo is desperately trying to get business to move to, or back to, NY State. Trying to reverse mass exodus that occurred mainly on his father’s term in office that seems irreversible. Corning’s area of NY State has enough Wineries and local breweries to keep California employees from feeling homesick—well, until they experience 3′ of snow when winter hits.
Yeah, the big downside of New York — the weather. You’ll find me most times in New Mexico or California, not missing the Broadway plays, the Fall colours, or the pumpernickel at all.
The positive side of upstate NY (thanks to the snow) is we don’t have highly poisonous or deadly critters like super toxic Spiders, Scorpions, Fire Ants or Killer Bees, No venomous snakes or non-native 10 ft pythons (Catskills have some Rattlesnakes but not farther North). Plus we can usually count on our homes still left standing after most severe summer storms. Not a bad trade for shoveling snow for 4 or 5 months.
Apple, please don’t make a banana phone…use the curved glass for a thin, streamlined, wrist fitting watch. The unused real estate on the iPhone is the back! Make a two sided iPhone …no need for curves.
Good, I have had stock in Corning for years too!
This could be used for a visor to be worn on the head as a heads up display for virtual reality applications, including night driving, drone flying, gaming, etc. Play & work with a “big” screen that you can take literally on the road or in the air.