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It is really sad that Apple has taken control of this technology and yet has given the public nothing to show for it.

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Aluminum both dents easily and scratches easily. It is a cheap crappy material. That is why it is used in soda cans, but, with a few exceptions, is not commonly used in things that need to be durable.

Yeah... good thing its not used in anything else... like boats, trailers, fuel efficient or electric car bodies, airplanes, or space station modules ...
 
Unlike North America (110V) the voltage in China (and Eurpoe) 220 and so is potentially more dangerous.

Guess where I live.

In the most frightening cases, the voltage will quickly destroy the charger. Which may result in some awful noise, but it's the charger that takes the damage. Once the charger is destroyed, it's harmless unless it is still hot and sets something on fire. So unless it happens when you are out, this kind of thing is frightening, but harmless.
 
Who said Apple owns it? Apple doesn't own any patents here. Crucible Intellectual Property, LLC owns all of the patents here.

The question is, how much ownership does Apple have of Crucible, and what's the deal on it.


"Describing that transaction, Liquidmetal stated, "On August 5, 2010, we entered into a license transaction with Apple Inc. ("Apple") pursuant to which (i) we contributed substantially all of our intellectual property assets to a newly organized special-purpose, wholly-owned subsidiary, called Crucible Intellectual Property, LLC ("CIP"), (ii) CIP granted to Apple a perpetual, worldwide, fully-paid, exclusive license to commercialize such intellectual property in the field of consumer electronic products, as defined in the license agreement, in exchange for a license fee, andhttp://appleinsider.com/articles/12..._outlines_its_20_million_agreement_with_apple (iii) CIP granted back to us a perpetual, worldwide, fully-paid, exclusive license to commercialize such intellectual property in all other fields of use. "


http://appleinsider.com/articles/12..._outlines_its_20_million_agreement_with_apple
 
Nobody said it was the charger that blew up. The battery is the most dangerous part that can explode in a very rare set of situations but again, it is the one of the most rarest things that can happen but it can.

If the charge diverted enough amps into the battery to cause it to explode, it can cause a lot of pain to the user. If the report is true, that could've been the situation here.

This has happened before in various type of phones. There was a guy who's MBP exploded internally because of the bad battery pack within it.

It's not enough energy to kill you. It's plenty enough to be very, very unpleasant, especially if you have your phone in a pocket where it is hard to remove. Or if someone forgot their reading glasses and held the screen close to their eyes (but I think you get some warning, and you would just drop the phone). That wasn't the case here. She was making or starting to make a phone call. And even in the most extreme cases, phone batteries haven't caused injuries that were anywhere life threatening. This was most likely a case of direct connection to mains voltage. How this happened, we don't know.
 
Aluminum both dents easily and scratches easily. It is a cheap crappy material. That is why it is used in soda cans, but, with a few exceptions, is not commonly used in things that need to be durable.

My old Colt M4 disagrees.
 
Yeah... good thing its not used in anything else... like boats, trailers, fuel efficient or electric car bodies, airplanes, or space station modules ...

It is also used in cookwear, due to its ability to conduct heat. It is also light weight, accounting for the uses you recount.

But in everyday life, it is mostly used for things like "tin" foil and "tin" cans. It is rarely used for things that need to stay shiny and nice but which are handled frequently. That is why it was such a huge mistake for Apple to use it for the casing of a phone. If the iPhone were made of a durable material, there would be little need to put the product's case inside an additional outer case. People do that because the aluminum srcatches and dents easily - no surprise there.

Aluminum is pretty much never used for jewelry. That is because it scratches and dents easily, and does not feel good in the hand.
 
This might be a noob question... and I haven't done any reasearch on this alloy... but since many say it is kind of in-between glass and metal, does anyone know if it blocks signals the same way aluminium does... If it isn't the case, then they'd be able to design iPhones and iPads without a glass/plastic window for cell signal etc.

My understanding is it's transparent to EM waves within that frequency spectrum.
 
So can my future iMac morph into a Terminator T1000? Or can Terminators morph into iMacs? :confused:

Neither. If you remember from the training video, Terminator 2, they can't morph into any complex shapes or anything sized beyond its proportions.

Yeah... good thing its not used in anything else... like boats, trailers, fuel efficient or electric car bodies, airplanes, or space station modules ...

Or high performance cars and engine parts including the internals.
 
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Liquidmetal just sounds cool

Yes, it does. Much cooler than "plastic metal", which is a better description of its molding characteristics. It's also not naturally shiny.

Names are important. After all, nobody would brag that they had a "plastic pewter" phone.

My understanding is it's transparent to EM waves within that frequency spectrum.

Nope, it's not transparent to radio. That rumor began by mistake when a LM engineer commented that since it was not transparent to RF, perhaps someone could use the entire case as an antenna.

Don't worry. Samsung will make a watch out of liquidmetal soon enough.

Dunno about watches, but Samsung had used LiquidMetal since 2002 for break resistant hinges and scratch resistant bezels in their phones.

In 2008, Samsung sold a $1400+ dual SIM luxury phone (think Vertu like) with a rugged chassis made out of LiquidMetal. It was advertised as being extra scratch and corrosion resistant.

2008_samsung_ego.png

Two years later, Apple made the deal for perpetual exclusive use in consumer electronics devices of any LiquidMetal corporation IP that was or will be created up through 2014.
 
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This is a fascinating development, but what would be the advantage over billet aluminum?

They create an iPhone that liquifies, so you can then slide it under the door or through small holes etc..

It thus shape shifts and reassembles itself on the other side.

Kind of like the bad guy in the Terminator.
 
This might be a noob question... and I haven't done any reasearch on this alloy... but since many say it is kind of in-between glass and metal, does anyone know if it blocks signals the same way aluminium does... If it isn't the case, then they'd be able to design iPhones and iPads without a glass/plastic window for cell signal etc.

I know this is off-topic, but this is a VERY common misconception that slightly annoys me. The glass inlays on the back of the iPhone 5 are not windows for radio penetration. Did people forget, the antenna system is OUTSIDE built into the frame itself. The glass inlays are actually part of the antenna, they serve the same purpose as the black lines do on the sides. Its to cut the antenna into separate sections. Since the 5 is an aluminum unibody, having just those lines on the side to separate won't work, they would need to have the line run across the entire back of the phone to split off the frame into sections.

So instead Apple used the glass inlays to provide the separation, to be more aesthetically pleasing instead of having two lines across the back of the phone. And if you look at the HTC One, thats exactly what they did, they simply put two lines running across the entire back of the phone. The glass inlays are just another example of Apples unbelievable attention to detail for seemingly small problems, but wanting to go the extra mile instead of taking shortcuts.
 
Liquid Metal & Glass

......It's basically a cross between metal and glass and previously has been difficult to make and impossible on an industrial scale such as this.

My old Swiss cheese brain seems to remember that sheets of glass with very parallel sides is made by floating it molten onto tin during manufacturing, just as described by this patent.
 
The advantage is that the metal can be pressed and injection molded into intricate shapes that are light weight and reasonably scratch resistant. The sheet metal can be pressed into shapes like phone cases eliminating the need for costly machining processes that are used in manufacturing out of aluminum blocks. It's basically a cross between metal and glass and previously has been difficult to make and impossible on an industrial scale such as this.

Thanks for the explanation. I was looking all over for why this is such a big issue and what advantage it provides for Apple.
 
It is also used in cookwear, due to its ability to conduct heat. It is also light weight, accounting for the uses you recount.

But in everyday life, it is mostly used for things like "tin" foil and "tin" cans. It is rarely used for things that need to stay shiny and nice but which are handled frequently. That is why it was such a huge mistake for Apple to use it for the casing of a phone. If the iPhone were made of a durable material, there would be little need to put the product's case inside an additional outer case. People do that because the aluminum srcatches and dents easily - no surprise there.

Aluminum is pretty much never used for jewelry. That is because it scratches and dents easily, and does not feel good in the hand.

So that's why HTC built their latest phone out of aluminum (that got rave reviews from the tech press)? And that's why we see all these MacBook Pro's and airs in cases? Btw, I had an iPad 2 and currently have a 3rd gen iPad and I've never used a case for it - only the Smart Cover. I take it with me everywhere I go. The back of the iPad has no scratches or dents. Also, my iPhone 5 feels great in my hand so you're not speaking for me there.
 
It is really sad that Apple has taken control of this technology and yet has given the public nothing to show for it.

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Aluminum both dents easily and scratches easily. It is a cheap crappy material. That is why it is used in soda cans, but, with a few exceptions, is not commonly used in things that need to be durable.

Most car companies will disagree with you regarding aluminum being a cheap crappy material. Engines, subframes, body panels, wheels, and tons of other parts are increasingly manufactured from aluminum. Granted, the grade of aluminum may differ from iPhone aluminum, but it's still aluminum. Saying aluminum is cheap and crappy is equal to the statement that plastic is cheap and crappy. Neither is entirely true.
 
So, why do they want to make large sheets of this material? I thought one of the advantages of Liquid Metal is that it can be molded into complex shapes eliminating the need to machine it. Are they going to cut up these sheets and then machine them into product? Were they not able to figure out how to mold large complex pieces? Or, is this just something they figured out how to do so they figured they might as well patent it?

Heat the sheets up and stamp them into shape.

So did the lightning connector till people found out it ran at ye-olde USB2 speeds which came out in 2001 (12 year ago!)

There is a rumor they might add USB 3 speeds which came out to the public in 2010

Pretty rubbish I'm sure you would agree for Apple's brand new connector.

Still, it's title makes sounds fast. Ohhhhh "Lightening"

sigh :(

USB 2 is faster than the flash memory used in the phones. A faster interface would be a waste. When Apple starts using faster memory, we will find out, the cable can handle faster signals.

Amazing how off topic a thread can get....

Marmots!!!

This might be a noob question... and I haven't done any reasearch on this alloy... but since many say it is kind of in-between glass and metal, does anyone know if it blocks signals the same way aluminium does... If it isn't the case, then they'd be able to design iPhones and iPads without a glass/plastic window for cell signal etc.

They call it a glass because of the way the molecules are arranged in a somewhat random pattern, without a grain. When you let a metal cool slowly, it forms grains or little crystals. The interface of the crystals are the points where the metal tends to fail. Think of them as micro cracks.

You can form very small anamorphic metal's by taking liquid metal and dropping it in liquid nitrogen or such. The problem is, if you drop a lot of metal, the outside cools fast, but the inside has time to form crystals. The other problems are, The drops are not the shape you want and the explosion when the molten metal hits the nitrogen.

There have been some results by spraying liquid nitrogen on thin sheets of a molten metal that has a low melting point, then laminating the sheets together. This does not work well, if you want to make complex shapes.

The advantage of Liquid Metal is, it is less likely to form those crystals as it cools. The biggest problem is, it's low melting point.
 
It is also used in cookwear, due to its ability to conduct heat. It is also light weight, accounting for the uses you recount.

But in everyday life, it is mostly used for things like "tin" foil and "tin" cans. It is rarely used for things that need to stay shiny and nice but which are handled frequently. That is why it was such a huge mistake for Apple to use it for the casing of a phone. If the iPhone were made of a durable material, there would be little need to put the product's case inside an additional outer case. People do that because the aluminum srcatches and dents easily - no surprise there.

Aluminum is pretty much never used for jewelry. That is because it scratches and dents easily, and does not feel good in the hand.

Right. I work in and my father owns a sheetmetal factory. So we work with metals every single day. You couldn't be any more clueless. We do a lot of military contracts, as well as some commercial projects. You know the airplane flight recorder boxes? Yea, those things that are designed to withstand a plane crash? Guess what they're made from. Aluminum. About 75% of the work we do is from a particular aluminum alloy that is very hard/dense.

Anyone who works with metals knows there are different thicknesses, hardness, strengths to an alloy. Aluminum could be a 5000 series, 6000 series, etc. I love how you lump all aluminum together into one basket and pretend to know what you're talking about.
 
I know this is off-topic, but this is a VERY common misconception that slightly annoys me. The glass inlays on the back of the iPhone 5 are not windows for radio penetration.

Actually, the iPhone's top glass is necessary for the shared WiFi and Bluetooth antenna.

The HTC One is unique in that it uses its metal case for all its antennas.

(Okay, except for NFC, which is apparently a loop antenna hidden behind and around the camera lens, but the iPhone doesn't have NFC for comparison.)

Info from AnandTech
 
Most car companies will disagree with you regarding aluminum being a cheap crappy material. Engines, subframes, body panels, wheels, and tons of other parts are increasingly manufactured from aluminum. Granted, the grade of aluminum may differ from iPhone aluminum, but it's still aluminum. Saying aluminum is cheap and crappy is equal to the statement that plastic is cheap and crappy. Neither is entirely true.

It may not be your everyday product, but the 2014 Corvette has an all-aluminum chassis!
 
Come on Apple!

Microsoft use it in their Surface tablets BTW.

BTW M$ 'liquid metal' is not really the same :apple: liquidmetal.
"The Microsoft Surface tablet is constructed from magnesium and manufactured using liquid metal. Microsoft claims the magnesium, PVD finish is the first of its kind in the PC market. Called VaporMg, the case is melted down in the manufacturing process and then moulded to the details needed for the design"
Apple uses other things and their materials are more expensive than M$.
 
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