Apple in their supplier list
http://images.apple.com/supplierresponsibility/pdf/Apple_Supplier_List_2011.pdf lists
Lens One Technology(Shenzhen)Co.,Ltd (
http://www.szlens.com/English/index.asp) as one of the suppliers. Perhaps this is actually their new glass supplier. In the company's web site it says they make glass windows and PMMA windows for mobile phones and the company
being in close proximity to Shenzhen makes more sense from a supply chain perspective. I don't think Lens Technology International (LTI) as mentioned earlier is the right company.
Thank you for your input and welcome to Macrumors. Yes, this Shenzhen base company, Lens One, is listed as one of Apple's suppliers, but not LTI.
Most likely Lens One cuts and fits Corning's Gorilla large glass panes for the iPhone 4, but not manufactures it. The article below supports this.
And maybe it makes the camera lens window too
Let's put this error of the OP's and ZipZap's logic to rest once and for all. The logic goes like this: Corning states that it can't list all of it customers;Apple states it doesn't list all of it's suppliers. LTI is not listed as a supplier by Apple; Lens One is listed, but it doesn't' list Apple as a customer, However, Lens One does list Nokia, Motorola, Samsung, (you know, the guys who do advertise they use Gorilla Glass?
). From your link:
Lens One Technology has got the trust of many domestic and international corporations, major customers are Motorola, Nokia, Samsung, Lenovo, Huawei, etc.
So the conclusion is that the iPhone no longer has Gorilla Glass? This is really flawed logic and nonsense. LOL, I guess that Apple uses nothing, since NO company owns up to making its glass...
There is a lack of understanding that one company, even a glass supplier, doesn't do everything. Corning makes large panes of glass, but it is cut, shaped, polished and mounted by other companies. The supply chain is complex.
Here is some info from a new
NYTimes story last week that supports that most likely Lens One, or someone else, cuts the Gorrilla Glass for Apple, but the iPhone glass is still made by Corning.
2007, Mr. Jobs angrily held up his iPhone, angling it so everyone could see the dozens of tiny scratches marring its plastic screen.
People will carry this phone in their pocket, he said. People also carry their keys in their pocket. “I won’t sell a product that gets scratched,” he said tensely. The only solution was using unscratchable glass instead. “I want a glass screen, and I want it perfect in six weeks.”
For years, cellphone makers had avoided using glass because it required precision in cutting and grinding that was extremely difficult to achieve. In 2006-2007, Apple had already selected an American company, Corning Inc., to manufacture large panes of strengthened glass. But figuring out how to cut those panes into millions of iPhone screens required finding an empty cutting plant, hundreds of pieces of glass to use in experiments and an army of midlevel engineers. It would cost a fortune simply to prepare.
Then a bid for the work arrived from a Chinese factory.
When an Apple team visited, the Chinese plant’s owners were already constructing a new wing. “This is in case you give us the contract,” the manager said, according to a former Apple executive. The Chinese government had agreed to underwrite costs for numerous industries, and those subsidies had trickled down to the glass-cutting factory. It had a warehouse filled with glass samples available to Apple, free of charge. The owners made engineers available at almost no cost. They had built on-site dormitories so employees would be available 24 hours a day.
In 2007, the Chinese plant got the job. (everyone agrees that the first iPhone had Gorilla Glass...and this explains the Corning/Chinese connection that continues today - viewfly)
Manufacturing glass for the iPhone revived a Corning factory in Kentucky, and today, much of the glass in iPhones is still made there. After the iPhone became a success, Corning received a flood of orders from other companies hoping to imitate Apple’s designs. Its strengthened glass sales have grown to more than $700 million a year, and it has hired or continued employing about 1,000 Americans to support the emerging market.
But as that market has expanded, the bulk of Corning’s strengthened glass manufacturing has occurred at plants in Japan and Taiwan.
“Our customers are in Taiwan, Korea, Japan and China,” said James B. Flaws, Corning’s vice chairman and chief financial officer. “We could make the glass here, and then ship it by boat, but that takes 35 days. Or, we could ship it by air, but that’s 10 times as expensive. So we build our glass factories next door to assembly factories, and those are overseas.”
Corning was founded in America 161 years ago and its headquarters are still in upstate New York. Theoretically, the company could manufacture all its glass domestically. But it would “require a total overhaul in how the industry is structured,” Mr. Flaws said. “The consumer electronics business has become an Asian business. As an American, I worry about that, but there’s nothing I can do to stop it. Asia has become what the U.S. was for the last 40 years.”
In summary, the idea that Apple, who pioneered Gorilla Glass for the mobile industry ( and also TV, computer screens) and afterwards as their competitors copied them, then decides to move to an inferior product is just lame. As I said the real story here is a 20 year old product that was resurrected by Apple and Corning, and the engineering issue was how to cut, shape and mount the glass to the phone, and that has been done, since day one by a Chinese company for Apple. And still is. The same is most likely done for Samsung, HTC, Moto and other Android phones, perhaps by Lens One too. Apple is all about offering the best product. And they charge you for it.
It's the same glass.
