Tim Cook Confirms New Arizona Factory Is for Sapphire Glass

CommanderFrank

CommanderFrank

Cat Can't Scratch It
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Tim Cook has confirmed rumors that its new plant in Mesa, Arizona is for the production of sapphire glass. Now exactly what the sapphire glass will be used for hasn’t been confirmed, but again, rumor has the sapphire glass for larger iPhone screens and possibly, the iWatch.

Cook declined to comment whether the glass would be used for bigger iPhone screens or an iWatch — "I can't tell you that" — though he did joke it would be used for a "ring."
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It's so they can replace that broken panel at their store in NYC.:eek:
 
Sweet I wish more people would start using sapphire on the screens. Effectively no reason to buy screen protectors anymore, unless you like to drop your phone. Recently I havent bought a watch without sapphire crystal, hate scratches on my watch crystal.
 
Love to see this glass used in aquariums such as reef tanks Right now many of us use Starphire glass.Oh wait this isnt reefcentral.com sorry!
 
colinstu said:
and by durable you mean like... drop resistant?
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Yeah, I believe it's more brittle and needs to be used in thicker panels to have the same drop resistance as the alumina hybrid glasses out there (like Gorilla glass).
 
I wasn't even aware that the stuff was available for consumer products (I assume the watches with sapphire glass are relatively high end?). I thought they only went into lenses for military/industrial gauges, etc. Cool stuff.
 
More likely for iWatch because it's too heavy and fragile for phone and tablet size but sapphire still scratches. Rather content with gorilla glass with replaceable tempered glass protector on top.
 
Arcygenical said:
Yeah, I believe it's more brittle and needs to be used in thicker panels to have the same drop resistance as the alumina hybrid glasses out there (like Gorilla glass).
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Great , make Apple products even more prone to break so people have to replace their's more often!
 
Actually, the surface of the Touch ID button is already sapphire. The factory may be for expanded Touch ID use on other devices. That said, it'd be a lot of effort just for small buttons. My guess is that it's for smartwatches, where drop resistance is less important than scratch resistance.
 
djsb said:
I wasn't even aware that the stuff was available for consumer products (I assume the watches with sapphire glass are relatively high end?). I thought they only went into lenses for military/industrial gauges, etc. Cool stuff.
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Two of my watches have sapphire crystals, but they are not 'high end'. 'Midrange' at best (Citizen)
 
Crimson said:
Love to see this glass used in aquariums such as reef tanks Right now many of us use Starphire glass.Oh wait this isnt reefcentral.com sorry!
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StarFire or low iron glass cannot do anything useful on a phone. It is not stronger which is the primary driver of glass material science for portable devices. In fact most places will not even sell starfire thinner than 1/4 inch because they say you cant tell the difference when glass is that thin.
 
Hehe. Might not even BE for displays. Has no one ever heard of SoS (silicon on saphire)?
 
BBA said:
Two of my watches have sapphire crystals, but they are not 'high end'. 'Midrange' at best (Citizen)
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High end is subjective. $300 for a watch is high end to me. mid-range would be $150.
To others, high end is $1K+
I was looking at a few $200-500 Citizen watches the other day and noticed they all had mineral and not sapphire for the watch faces. I was figuring a $200 watch would have sapphire.
 
mi7chy said:
but sapphire still scratches.
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my rolex would disagree, it's had a rough life, I have managed to chip off bits of the edge of the sapphire but no scratches
 
Did you guys miss the trade show displays from last year of the iphone and whatnot with the sapphire screen protector?

Honestly, whether it's a little more brittle is irrelevant. This stuff simply does not scratch. It's no joke that you can literally scrape on it with concrete and it doesn't scratch. It's real man-made sapphire and the only thing harder is diamond. You need something with the abrasion of diamond to really damage it.

Keys in your pocket? No issue. They'll scratch up the phone case but won't even mark the screen.

And imagine stylus use or your bare finger and never needing a protector for the life of the device? They also claimed better touch response.

YES PLEASE. This tech can't get here soon enough.

Hell, could I get my next pair of glasses made of this stuff? Damn.
 
FLECOM said:
my rolex would disagree, it's had a rough life, I have managed to chip off bits of the edge of the sapphire but no scratches
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Don't try to reason with him. Anything that relates to Apple is instantly deemed shit by him.
 
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