“We still don’t know if Apple plans to use Liquidmetal on a major product,” Abdel Ibrahim writes for AppAdvice. “Nonetheless, evidence suggests Cupertino plans on using the breakthrough material somewhere soon.”
“Apple’s use of ceramic in the Watch is not indicative of the company using it on the iPhone. Apple claims it takes nine days to make one of those shiny white ceramic cases for the Apple Watch Edition. There’s simply no way to efficiently scale that up to making over 200 million iPhones a year,” Ibrahim writes. “That being said, I’ve been digging around and I think there’s more evidence suggesting Apple is getting close to using Liquid Metal, perhaps for the next iPhone.”
“Liquidmetal has an exclusive partnership with Engel to make manufacturing equipment and Engel is the leader in injection molding,” Ibrahim writes. “On top of that, in order to get one of these Engel Liquidmetal machines, you must have a license from Liquidmetal technologies. Guess who has one? Apple.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: The rumors say that the next iPhone will be made of “glass.” So, is this “glass,” as in Gorilla glass, or is it bulk metallic glass (as in: Liquidmetal) or both?
The timeframe would be right for Apple to begin using Liquidmetal in earnest.
I estimate that Apple will likely spend on the order of $300 million to $500 million — and three to five years — to mature the technology before it can used in large scale. — Dr. Atakan Peker, one of the Caltech researchers who invented Liquidmetal, May 2012
SEE ALSO:
Apple supplier Catcher CEO: One iPhone model will adopt glass casing next year – May 19, 2016
Apple granted key U.S patent for Touch ID fingerprint recognition integrated into Multi-Touch display – May 18, 2016
Apple supplier LG Innotek embeds fingerprint sensor into display – May 4, 2016
Why the 2017 iPhone will be made of Liquidmetal – April 18, 2016
Ming-Chi Kuo: Apple’s 2017 iPhone to feature new ‘all glass’ enclosure – April 18, 2016
Professor behind Liquidmorphium Turing Phone invests in Liquidmetal, named to Board, enters into cross-licensing agreement – March 14, 2016
3D fingerprint sensors under Gorilla Glass may let Apple kill iPhone’s Home button – July 21, 2015
The Turing Phone is not made out of Liquidmetal – July 15, 2015
Why does Apple keep extending their partnership with Liquidmetal? – June 25, 2015
Apple extends Liquidmetal exclusivity deal through February 2016 – June 23, 2015
Apple working on eliminating the Home button on iPhone, iPad, sources say – June 22, 2015
Two new Liquidmetal patent filings from Apple revealed; list watch and jewelry among potential uses – April 23, 2015
Apple files for patent to move Touch ID fingerprint scanner from home button to display – February 9, 2015
Liquidmetal’s Apple alliance yet to bear fruit – September 30, 2014
Apple’s new Liquidmetal-related patent sparks speculation – July 7, 2014
Apple patents method for embedding sapphire displays in LiquidMetal device chassis – May 27, 2014
Liquidmetal-Visser agreement paves the way for more rapid adoption of amorphous metal manufacturing – May 21, 2014
Apple extends Liquidmetal exclusivity deal through February 2015 – May 21, 2014
As a shareholder of LQMT, it would be great to see them used for anything outside of “SIM removal tool.” Not helping the stock price at all.
LQMT was a speculative move. It may yet pay off for you. But not every Apple-related investment play is successful. Remember sapphire displays?
True enough, though I started buying a bit of LQMT before Apple got involved. Hoped that would make it jump, but it never did. Still, LQMT is so cheap, I haven’t lost anything, really.
I keep thinking about the hundreds of thousands of robots that Foxcon is putting into place in their factory. That sounds like liquidmetal territory to me — a great way to get lots of machines into production with very few human beings knowing anything about it.
Ignore all this BS speculations and rumors that are designed to take attention away from this years awesome iphone 7…..
Go to an Apple Store and check them out.. jet black is a beauty !
Metal Flubber
Liquid metal seems to be a delusion. Name one other thing than the sim removal pin. This subject is vapor.