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Did the original iPhone have a glass face at first?

M

MyJelleo

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Mar 29, 2007
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Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU like Mac OS X; en) AppleWebKit/420.1 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/3.0 Mobile/4A102 Safari/419.3)

I was just thinking -- when the iPhone first was announced, there were a number of people who had hands on with the device. Now,a little before the actual release of the iPhone, apple announced that the phone's front would be glass and not plastic. What I'm wondering is whether the original demonstration model had a plastic face?
 
Woah...

I'm pretty sure the 1st gen iPhones and iPod touches both had glass faces.

I'm wonder if the iPhone 3G is like a bastard child of the 1st gen iPhone. It's cheap partly because it's made with plastic instead of high quality parts.

I smell it going the way of the Razr.
 
MyJelleo said:
Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU like Mac OS X; en) AppleWebKit/420.1 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/3.0 Mobile/4A102 Safari/419.3)

I was just thinking -- when the iPhone first was announced, there were a number of people who had hands on with the device. Now,a little before the actual release of the iPhone, apple announced that the phone's front would be glass and not plastic. What I'm wondering is whether the original demonstration model had a plastic face?
Click to expand...

where did you read about the plastic?
 
When Apple first announced the iPhone at Macworld '07, they said that it would have a durable plastic screen. However, about 2 weeks before the launch, Apple posted updated specs on their website, giving it glass screen and better battery life.

All iPhones that were manufactured and for sale have had a glass screen, including first generation.
 
Luigi239 said:
When Apple first announced the iPhone at Macworld '07, they said that it would have a durable plastic screen. However, about 2 weeks before the launch, Apple posted updated specs on their website, giving it glass screen and better battery life.

All iPhones that were manufactured and for sale have had a glass screen, including first generation.
Click to expand...

That I knew, I thought the OP was referring to the 3g. It should also be glass. I was curious what 'apple announcement' regarding the 3g talked about changing back to plastic front. I know of none.
 
I've always assumed that the original demonstration prototypes had a plastic screen since the impression I got was that switching to glass was a last minute decision. But I suppose its possible that the demo ones had glass and it had been planed for production models to be plastic and possibly when they saw the plastic having already used the glass decided to switch. Either way I also would be interested to know.
 
MyJelleo said:
http://db.tidbits.com/article/9045

Does no one else remember this? If they announced these changes 2 weeks before the actual release, what was the front of the original floor model during its announcement made out of?
Click to expand...

Well, according to Apple it was plastic, but we don't really know for sure because nobody really got to do a scratch or durability test on it when it was first announced.
 
tsice19 said:
Woah...

I'm pretty sure the 1st gen iPhones and iPod touches both had glass faces.

I'm wonder if the iPhone 3G is like a bastard child of the 1st gen iPhone. It's cheap partly because it's made with plastic instead of high quality parts.

I smell it going the way of the Razr.
Click to expand...



HA HA ! Thats awesome the bastard child! I love it! YES the 3G is BUDGET! ! !

X-
 
Okay, I guess I wasn't too clear with my opening post: I'm talking about the first generation iPhone, not the 3G revision.

O, someone already answered my question. NM, thank you.
 
The thing that most people don't realize is that the iPhone glass is actually plastic. Its an "optical quality" glass made from polymers so it it is technicly a plastic. I discovered this when I was trying to decide wether to use a screen protector or not,I really liked the feel of the smooth glass and didnt want to compromise that. I then discovered that the screen protector was made of the exact same material.
 
s8film40 said:
The thing that most people don't realize is that the iPhone glass is actually plastic. Its an "optical quality" glass made from polymers so it it is technicly a plastic. I discovered this when I was trying to decide wether to use a screen protector or not,I really liked the feel of the smooth glass and didnt want to compromise that. I then discovered that the screen protector was made of the exact same material.
Click to expand...

Similar to the iMac. The iMac front technically is and is not glass. If you thump it, it sounds a lot like plastic. But optical quality also being very recylcable would still produce a 'shatter' effect when smashed as some have seen destroyed iPhones.

Provided it IS a silica polymer.
 
s8film40 said:
The thing that most people don't realize is that the iPhone glass is actually plastic. Its an "optical quality" glass made from polymers so it it is technicly a plastic. I discovered this when I was trying to decide wether to use a screen protector or not,I really liked the feel of the smooth glass and didnt want to compromise that. I then discovered that the screen protector was made of the exact same material.
Click to expand...

Irregardless of the process use to manufacture the glass if it is SiO2 then it is glass, not plastic. ;)

I don't know why some people are so against the plastic back I look at it as one of the improvements. Not only do I find it more aesthetically pleasing than the previous two piece back, it is also more functional due to increased signal reception. If it made the phone cost less then that is just an added bonus. I'm not sure why anyone would pay more money for crappier reception and an uglier phone but if you prefer this just buy the original.
 
Wow. The old reading-comprehension score is pretty low on this thread. It looks like less than half the posters understood the question.

The problem in answering it is that so few people got to touch that prototype. Only top-level Apple employees and some very select members of the media. (And even then, only for a minute or so.) I'm sure someone knows the answer to this but it's not going to be anyone who posts here.
 
brandonzar said:
Irregardless of the process use to manufacture the glass if it is SiO2 then it is glass, not plastic. ;)
Click to expand...

Any transparent material falls under the definition of glass. You can have plastic glass. Glass can be made of many different materials for that matter.
 
s8film40 said:
Any transparent material falls under the definition of glass. You can have plastic glass. Glass can be made of many different materials for that matter.
Click to expand...

I suppose you are partially right as the broad definition of glass does include other inorganic and organic glasses like acrylic glass, but traditional glasses are made of silica dioxide doped with various other materials to impart certain desirable properties. In the original iphone keynote Steve Jobs got up and specifically said that the glass was silica dioxide, this is an inorganic glass and to the best of my knowledge inorganic glasses don't typically include organic components like polyacrylate except in laminated layers (like car windshields). This isn't my field of expertise though so if you have a source detailing the composition of the glass Apple uses post it cause I'd love to take a look.
 
Huh?!

Why is this thread even in existence?

Who cares what the floor model had / had not. It's a well known fact that iPhone has glass, and they'll never waiver from that - why would they? It's easy to clean and stays looking brand new.

End of story.
 
voicegy said:
Why is this thread even in existence?

Who cares what the floor model had / had not. It's a well known fact that iPhone has glass, and they'll never waiver from that - why would they? It's easy to clean and stays looking brand new.

End of story.
Click to expand...

I always wanted to ask this question too, but I was just too afraid. So, I for one am glad this thread exist :apple:
 
Xploit? What BUDGET phone have you seen that has a great, responsive touch screen, 8GB and 16GB of internal memory, a durable screen, 3G, GPS, a great battery life, great reception (the plastic back helps, deal with it), and more? So stop making up random sh*t about this be a BUDGET! BUDGET! BUDGET! phone and leave the forums.
 
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