Although its fans demand it, Apple might abandon its hopes to deliver a sapphire glass iPhone model anytime soon, and go for Corning’s Gorilla Glass 4 instead. Even more – the iPhone 6 might already have Corning’s Gorilla Glass 4 on it, despite the fact that the company has just recently revealed it, The Motley Fool writes.
The media has fully covered the case involving Apple’s failed effort to bring sapphire glass iPhone 6 models to its customers. The story was ugly, speaking of mismanagement and bankruptcies – a severely asymmetric deal, the lack of experience at GT Advanced Technology and the haste that prevented them to work out every detail to the end. The result is the bankruptcy of the company, and the lack of sapphire glass on the latest Apple flagship handset. Case closed.
The Motley Fool thinks that Apple might have used the latest innovation recently presented by Corning, a new and more resistant generation of its Gorilla Glass. The website cites Jim Flaws, CEO at Corning, who claims that customers have already been integrating the glass into some new products, and the company has been shipping it for a while. Flaws hinted that Corning has made massive deliveries of its products for some “well known new product launches” in Q3-2013. Connecting the dots, we can see a pattern here. As Apple was not able to deliver on its (rumored) plans to deliver an iPhone 6 with a tough, scratch resistant screen, it has most likely opted for the next best thing. And this next best thing happened to be Corning’s tougher and much improved Gorilla Glass 4.
The most important aspects of a cover glass material is its scratch resistance and its drop protection. Sapphire’s higher scratch resistance was one of the major reasons why Apple wanted to use it in the first place. Sapphire is heavier than glass, though, and it breaks more easily when dropped on a rough surface – so, going with Gorilla Glass 4 might not have been such a bad idea after all.