“It now seems that Apple was intent to use sapphire in the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus, as GT was manufacturing pieces in the shape of the new models. That also explains why a handful of sapphire cover glass prototypes were leaked, which only intensified speculation,” Evan Niu writes for The Motley Fool. “As Apple’s sapphire dreams hit a wall, will the iPhone maker go back to its tried-and-true supplier Corning.”
“Corning has just introduced Gorilla Glass 4, the latest version of its popular cover glass. The company says that Gorilla Glass 4 is twice as tough as any other cover glass on the market, while also providing twice the damage resistance. Corning focused very heavily on drop protection for this generation,” Niu writes. “Scratch resistance and drop protection are the most important characteristics of a cover glass material, and sapphire’s higher scratch resistance was one of the driving motivations for Apple to consider the material in the first place. However, sapphire is so brittle that it fares worse in the drop protection department. It’s also heavier.”
Niu writes, “Despite the fact that Corning just announced Gorilla Glass 4, the iPhone 6 might even already sport the material. At a UBS tech conference earlier this week, Corning’s CFO Jim Flaws said [emphasis added]: ‘Our Gorilla Glass business has seen volume growth versus last year. However, that’s been offset by a large price decline in Q1. We are planning to launch Gorilla Glass 4 this week, in fact, tomorrow. And I can’t spoil the launch, but it does promise to have dramatically improved performance characteristics, and our customers have already been integrating this glass into some new products, and we have been shipping for a while.‘”
Read more in the full article here.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “Carl H.” for the heads up.]