Apple Could Possibly Add A Sapphire Cover Glass To A Future iPhone

PhilSynowiec · Nov 12, 2013

Apple as well as many other smartphone companies have been using Corning's Gorilla Glass to protect displays for some time now. It seems as though every new version of Gorilla Glass keeps on getting stronger, yet customers are constantly having to replace broken screens on devices. Well that might change according to an interesting report from TechCrunch today.

Our favorite fruit company has recently invested in GT Advanced Technologies over half a billion dollars so that the company can provide an adequate supply of sapphire. Sapphire is currently being used in the iPhone 5/5S camera lens, and the iPhone 5S Touch ID sensor. While it's beat by the 10 a diamond holds on the hardness scale, Sapphire's 9 hardness is nothing short of strong. However, the stone is extremely expensive and very difficult to cut.

Apple could drive the costs of sapphire sheets down incredibly low in comparison to the traditional method. It will be able to create many of these super thin sapphire sheets from the same amount of raw material it would take to make one full piece of sapphire cover glass. It could then laminate the assembly together in the way that it currently does iPhones [...]

This, in turn, could mean sapphire cover sheets that are harder and tougher than standard glass materials on your iPhone years sooner than most analysts have predicted.

TechCrunch believes that with Apple's boost in capital for GTAT by 2000% and its acquisition of a solar panel company, GTAT could hypothetically be capable of cutting the stone into thin layers to provide future iPhone sapphire cover glass. Currently the cost of creating iPhones with a sapphire cover glass would cost about 10 times as much, which wouldn't be profitable to Apple, since the company probably does make a good chunk of revenue from broken screens. However if the two companies would be able to utilize technologies, a sapphire iPhone cover glass could be coming very soon to a future iPhone model.