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Apple Sapphire Deal with GT to Hit Full Production Beginning in 2H 2014
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I hope Brewer signs the law, and the next day Apple announces they're moving the plant to another state.
Thanks, that was indeed interesting.
They used 5 mm thick Kyropolous grown sapphire (great optical qualities, almost stress free) in a steel holder. They dropped the ball on it using 4" height increments until the sapphire shattered from the 7th ball dropped from 27".
A similar test (from two years ago) with 1 mm Gorilla Glass 2 withstood a ball half the same weight from 36". Need to find a more recent and correlative test with GG 3.
(Note: the Gorilla Glass used for smartphones is only 0.8 mm thick.)
In any case, the point is, yes sapphire can break apart from a hit.
That goes without saying..But i bet apple would have run a large number of tests costing a ton of money to figure out the pro and cons of using both solutions before they went on and spend half a billion dollars betting on the fact that the Sapphire approach would be better for them.
There is talk that he has suggested that they won't. If they aren't hitting full production until the second half of the year then this might not be something intended for a 2014 release. Giving Apple time to pull out of the state and find somewhere else.
Or they might have a backup plan to wait for a year to use sapphire if they need to (say if something fails once they start full production)
