Apple’s iPhone 6 and 6 Plus are two powerful, elegant and now multi-million-unit selling devices that are anything but disappointing. Yet they did manage to disappoint a contingent of iPhone watchers who believed the latest Apple mobile phones displays would include a material with near-mythic qualities: sapphire crystal.
In a YouTube video that has since been widely shared, Marques Brownlee, a student at Stevens Institute of Technology in Hoboken, New Jersey, claimed to have an iPhone 6 prototype and demonstrated the properties of what he thought was its sapphire crystal display cover. As he bent, stabbed and scratched the paper-thin display, Brownlee accurately noted that the home button and iSight camera lens cover in the iPhone 5S contain sapphire crystal (and now, we know the home button and iSight camera lens cover in the iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus do, too).
The video, which has accrued more than 7 million views, was posted in July, months before Apple’s official iPhone 6 launch. Brownlee said the display cover came “straight off the assembly line,” but Apple is known for experimenting with different designs and technologies. One thing is for certain now, though: There is no sapphire in the iPhone 6 or 6 Plus display.
Why not use sapphire glass?
According to a recent teardown report, both iPhone 6 devices actually use Gorilla Glass 3 to protect the sensitive display technology underneath, which is the same glass Apple used on the iPhone 5S.
Sapphire crystal is reportedly significantly stronger and more scratch-resistant than Corning’s Gorilla Glass, and can bend as well or better than Gorilla Glass. So why didn’t Apple use it?
In the months leading up to the iPhone 6 debut, all signs pointed to Apple launching its first sapphire crystal display smartphone in September. Reports stated that the company had built a sapphire crystal production facility with partner GT Advanced Technology in Arizona, and would start mass production by mid-summer.
Then the leaks began. While Apple is known for testing out multiple designs, all the leaked iPhone 6 chassis looked virtually the same (and we later learned they were quite accurate). There was good reason to believe that Brownlee's video with leaked production samples did, in fact, feature a sapphire crystal display.
Minerals expert and Imperial College professor Neil Alford, who advised Apple to use sapphire crystal, didn't seem particularly surprised at the sapphire crystal display omission. He told Mashable that Apple’s choice may have boiled down to simple economics; there was also the issue of supply.
“At the volumes they needed, they also needed a guaranteed supply. Big areas are intrinsically more problematic because the larger the area the more likelihood of a defect in the sapphire wafer,” Alford wrote in an email.
Although sapphire crystal is synthesized, larger panels (or wafers) often have imperfections. This is something Apple sought to address in a recent patent, which was granted to the company on Sept. 18. In it, Apple notes:
“Even in the absence of environmental damage to the substrate, the substrate is unlikely to be manufactured flawlessly so surface defects are likely to be present. The defects may dramatically reduce the strengths of the parts, so a thicker substrate and/or more surface finishing process may be used to improve the quality of the substrate, though these may substantially increase manufacturing costs.
In the patent, Apple sought to counter those inherent defects by applying multiple coatings of a comparatively softer and similar material to both sides of the sapphire wafer. The coating would not only create a near-perfect surface, but protect the sapphire wafer’s imperfections from reacting to stress of usage.
It unclear, though, if the process is effective. The largest Apple sapphire screen we've seen is the Apple Watch display, and that device won’t be available until next year. In the meantime, the iSight camera lens cover is rarely, if ever, touched — and the iPhone home button is about the size of a fingertip and on top of a moveable button which absorbs most of the impact stress.
Brownlee also said he's not surprised Apple made a last-minute change. “Apple is known to do that,” he wrote in an email to Mashable.
When I asked him if he'd considered the possibility that he simply got it wrong, he said yes. "[That] is why I did additional testing in a second follow-up video. But you can never underestimate just how quickly Apple can turnaround production and change their display technology (or any material),” Brownlee wrote. He added that he is still waiting on those test results.
In the meantime, if you’re wondering what a 4-inch-plus sapphire crystal touch screen feels like, look no further than the Kyocera Brigadier, a ruggedized phone (currently only available on Verizon) that features Kyocera's proprietary Sapphire Shield display, which the company has been developing for almost half a century.
This proves that a large sapphire touch screen is possible. Even so, Apple probably won’t build a smartphone with a sapphire crystal screen until the company is satisfied that it can do in a cost-effective manner and at scale.
Source: mashable
0 comments:
Post a Comment