“A Corning executive launched a blistering critique of sapphire crystal, used as a protective material for displays, on Tuesday,” Brooke Crothers reports for CNET. “The subtext was obviously aimed at Apple.”
“In defense of its Gorilla Glass, Tony Tripeny, a senior vice president at Corning Glass, was asked the following question at the Morgan Stanley Technology, Media & Telecom Conference, via Seeking Alpha, on Tuesday,” Crothers reports. “The question came from analyst James Fawcett of Morgan Stanley… ‘So we mentioned Sapphire and obviously there is one large handset and device maker that people suspect maybe looking at Sapphire. And at least from a Corning perspective, [what are] the puts and takes of Sapphire versus glass?'”
Crothers reports, “Tripney’s response: ‘When we look at it, we see a lot of disadvantages of Sapphire versus Gorilla Glass. It’s about 10 times more expensive. It’s about 1.6 times heavier. It’s environmentally unfriendly. It takes about 100 times more energy to generate a Sapphire crystal than it does glass. It transmits less light which…means either dimmer devices or shorter battery life. It continues to break. I think while it’s a scratch resistant product it still breaks and our testing says that Gorilla Glass [can take] about 2.5 times more pressure that it can take…Sapphire on. So when we look at it, we think from an overall industry and trend that is not attractive in consumer electronics.'”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: The fear is palpable.
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