“The speculation is building. Apple’s upcoming iPhone 6 almost certainly looks poised to sport this wild new technology. With the company’s newly forged partnership with sapphire crystal maker GT Advanced Technologies it’s rumored that Apple is readying new devices that will sport sapphire crystal displays — particularly the iPhone 6,” Daniel Sparks writes for The Motley Fool. “As the typical fall launch timeframe for Apple’s next-generation iPhone lineup approaches, a few videos have surfaced showing the impressive capabilities of the material. Could Apple’s iPhone 6 display be nearly indestructible?”
“On the Mohs scale of mineral hardness, pure sapphire comes in at an impressive 9, making it “the second hardest naturally occurring material on Earth,” according to YouTube tech reviewer Marques Brownlee,” Sparks writes. “This sort of hardness enables sapphire to hold up against considerable efforts to damage it.”
“Best of all, as Fool senior technology specialist Evan Niu recently explained, it’s not going to be easy for competitors to imitate this impressive feat Apple seems to have achieved with sapphire covers,” Sparks writes. “In an increasingly competitive smartphone market, Apple’s sapphire display could be the differentiating factor Apple needs to stand out with the iPhone 6.”
Read more in the full article here.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “Lynn Weiler” for the heads up.]
Never mind scratch tests, it’s been fairly resistant for several iPhone iterations. I’m more interested in the corner cases, literally: what happens when point of impact is the edge or corner? A couple scratches I can live with, but cracking the screen into a spider web pattern is a whole different story.
Bravo – exactly.
And when the caption says, “Nearly Indestructible?”
It questions if it even mets that level.
In other words, it is destructible !!!!!!
I guess sapphire is a good thing but I looked at my iPhone 5 screen and I can’t find a scratch. But then again I don’t put my keys and phone in the same pocket. I imagine a purse to be a scratch prone location though.
I’ve never put *anything* in my pocket with my iPhone 5, and yet after 18 or 19 months of use, I do have some very small scratches in several parts of the screen. None that are bad enough to see in the actual screen image, but they are pretty obvious under close scrutiny in bright lighting with the screen off. I’d be surprised if yours wasn’t the same if you’ve had it for at least a year.
Proper handbags have many special pockets. Only the ditzy amongst us drop the iPhone into a big open conglomeration of railroad spikes and shuriken.
That was very funny! I had to look it up (never was much into oriental martial arts)…
Ah—ha! Revealed! Some of what women carry in their purses… railroad spikes and shuriken.
Yeah, I was wondering the same thing. What a damsel does with that load in her purse on date night … ;~)
let’s try rearranging the letters…. nnjaahhs=ninjas?
You have met my wife, how nice.
I guess this guy missed the article last week about trying sandpaper on the new screen. It didn’t do so well and there was some doubt about it being sapphire. Time will tell!
Guess I’ll have to keep my iPhone away from the bag of sand I carry with me at all times.
Let Myth Busters give it a try.
I’ll guess a few pounds of explosives will do the trick yes…
Still have to admit, it is pretty nice. I won’t have to worry about coins or keys in my pocket scratching it up. I have noticed that there are some scratches on mine currently.
The sad thing about these scratch tests is that the test people will just keep trying harder and harder to destroy the glass until it does break even if it means throwing it into an industrial shredder or firing an armor-piercing bullet at it. I never see any destruction tests on Samsung displays or any other company’s components.
Why is that that iPhone displays have to be indestructible? It seems to me as though people keep trying to set the bar higher for Apple products. It’s not as though Apple has made any claims about the display’s toughness or anything. All this does is raise almost impossible expectations. What’s even worse is that this may not even an iPhone display or the actual display that Apple will be putting into production.
…and there is yet another thing Samsung copied, by using Gorilla glass instead of plastic as it was initially created.
Gorilla Glass is an industry standard, they’ve had partnerships with many smartphone manufacturers for years upon years and several of those manufacturers were using Gorilla Glass before Apple was. Gorilla Glass has been on Galaxy phones since it’s inception… I say all that not to say that Samsung aren’t copying shills; because they are. But to say don’t just make up stuff just because you like one company over another. Corning, the company that makes Gorilla Glass is a company with a product that they pitched to several smartphone OEM’s… many of which placed orders once they saw the value. It was not a product that Apple invented or ‘did first’.
“Gorilla Glass is an industry standard, they’ve had partnerships with many smartphone manufacturers for years upon years and several of those manufacturers were using Gorilla Glass before Apple was.”
WRONG.
Gorilla glass was actually developed way back in 1960 but mothballed until Steve Jobs needed something scratch-proof for the screen of the original iPhone. Jobs had to convince Corning that the glass could be manufactured in sufficient quantities for the iPhone’s launch. It’s now used in almost all high-end smartphones, regardless of brand.
First, no one is interested in testing Samsung products. Everyone already knows they are junk.
Second, Apple is setting the bar higher with each generation of iPhone. And we LIKE that.
Third, cracked screens is the most common problem with iPhones. Have you seen how many people are walking around with them. I cracked my 4S badly. People commented on it all the time. It was embarrassing. I paid for a $30 glass screen protector on my 5S. It’s saved me once already. It cracked up, I peeled it off, and promptly went out and bought another. If the 6 is even harder, I’m all for it!!
True, but cracked screens are the most common problem with ALL touch smartphones, not just the iPhone.
There is too big a market for iPhone repair for this to ever happen. Apple will never give up that cash cow.
I’ve seen the durability test videos and the screen they are testing is quite impressive. However, I have one reservation. When they do break the screen it doesn’t spider crack like a windshield, it shatters sending class bits everywhere. Is this glass the final item or is there a step that has not been done yet?
I can see the lawsuits now where someone drives over their iPhone, the screen shatters, and they get cut picking up the pieces.
I’ll believe it’s indestructible when it won’t blend.
——RM
Precisely! Or see below…
Yes I’d like to see a shatter test. Though my simple CaseMate rubber-ish case has held up to numerous drops on hard surfaces, I’d like to see what happens when this harder material gets dropped on a driveway. Sometimes the harder the material the more easily shattered it is, even if it’s scratch proof.
Nearly indestructible?
Compared to WHAT exactly? Want to test it with a pneumatic JACKHAMMER? I think not.
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/81/Pneumatic_drill.jpeg