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Sapphire Glass might not be real
- Thread starter Badrottie
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I beat the hell out of my phone when I'm working, but it's in a great wallet case, so it still looks new. Even after I've occasionally stuffed my keys in the same parka pocket.
The OP must have gotten some sand in the pocket the phone was in. Beach vacation? Honestly though that level of damage looks like your phone got dragged across something rough. That's more than a random encounter with pocket sand/lint could do. I feel bad for you. I believe that you don't know how it happened. But I don't believe that Apple or the people who do the tear-down reports are lying about the sapphire.
If its clean then fabrics won't scratch.
If there is grit of some very hard material embedded in the fibers it will scratch.
There are a number of materials > 9 on mohs scale, not just diamond.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mohs_scale_of_mineral_hardness
"Dust" on surfaces can be comprised of anything. I cringe whenever I see people slide their phone across a table. Maybe they don't care, and that's fine, but the habit of doing that tells me what will happen if they are looking at something on my phone and go to return it.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mohs_scale_of_mineral_hardness
"Dust" on surfaces can be comprised of anything. I cringe whenever I see people slide their phone across a table. Maybe they don't care, and that's fine, but the habit of doing that tells me what will happen if they are looking at something on my phone and go to return it.
I know, that's what I'm saying. They're not saying only a diamond can scratch it, just that it's the only transparent material that can. Non transparent materials, such as concrete, can scratch it.
I guess many of us are confused between Sapphire Crystal and Sapphire Glass.
Sapphire Crystals are naturally occurring elements - like diamonds, and are indeed quite hard - next to diamonds. However Sapphire Crystals are rare to find (when compared to their demand!). Amongst the ones available, some of them contain 'impurities' (heard of blue sapphires? Yeah those are sapphire crystals with impurities) and the process to remove the impurities is difficult and almost impossible on such a large scale. Hence sapphire crystals are not malleable - certainly cannot be used to make glass sheets/screens.
Sapphire Glass on the other hand is synthetic. Since they duplicate the atomic structure of Sapphire Crystal they can be very hard and thus resist scratches. But being made into glass sheets also makes them relatively more fragile ('relatively' being the key word here). Maybe that's one of the reasons why it is taking so long for Apple in implementing them in their phone screens I guess (and maybe costs too? I'm not sure there). Imagine stress endurance level of a watch glass with less surface area and a 4'' phone screen with a more surface area - highly unequal; phone screen thus being comparatively fragile.
Coming back to the topic, Sapphire Glass is almost as hard as Sapphire Crystal but is not Sapphire Crystal (hence very very difficult to scratch but not impossible). But dear OP, if that is your camera ring then I'm curious to see the rest of your device
P.S. Whoops! Too long! Sorry! But I hope somebody will read this.
Sapphire Crystals are naturally occurring elements - like diamonds, and are indeed quite hard - next to diamonds. However Sapphire Crystals are rare to find (when compared to their demand!). Amongst the ones available, some of them contain 'impurities' (heard of blue sapphires? Yeah those are sapphire crystals with impurities) and the process to remove the impurities is difficult and almost impossible on such a large scale. Hence sapphire crystals are not malleable - certainly cannot be used to make glass sheets/screens.
Sapphire Glass on the other hand is synthetic. Since they duplicate the atomic structure of Sapphire Crystal they can be very hard and thus resist scratches. But being made into glass sheets also makes them relatively more fragile ('relatively' being the key word here). Maybe that's one of the reasons why it is taking so long for Apple in implementing them in their phone screens I guess (and maybe costs too? I'm not sure there). Imagine stress endurance level of a watch glass with less surface area and a 4'' phone screen with a more surface area - highly unequal; phone screen thus being comparatively fragile.
Coming back to the topic, Sapphire Glass is almost as hard as Sapphire Crystal but is not Sapphire Crystal (hence very very difficult to scratch but not impossible). But dear OP, if that is your camera ring then I'm curious to see the rest of your device
P.S. Whoops! Too long! Sorry! But I hope somebody will read this.
I guess many of us are confused between Sapphire Crystal and Sapphire Glass.
Sapphire Crystals are naturally occurring elements - like diamonds, and are indeed quite hard - next to diamonds. However Sapphire Crystals are rare to find (when compared to their demand!). Amongst the ones available, some of them contain 'impurities' (heard of blue sapphires? Yeah those are sapphire crystals with impurities) and the process to remove the impurities is difficult and almost impossible on such a large scale. Hence sapphire crystals are not malleable - certainly cannot be used to make glass sheets/screens.
Sapphire Glass on the other hand is synthetic. Since they duplicate the atomic structure of Sapphire Crystal they can be very hard and thus resist scratches. But being made into glass sheets also makes them relatively more fragile ('relatively' being the key word here). Maybe that's one of the reasons why it is taking so long for Apple in implementing them in their phone screens I guess (and maybe costs too? I'm not sure there). Imagine stress endurance level of a watch glass with less surface area and a 4'' phone screen with a more surface area - highly unequal; phone screen thus being comparatively fragile.
Coming back to the topic, Sapphire Glass is almost as hard as Sapphire Crystal but is not Sapphire Crystal (hence very very difficult to scratch but not impossible). But dear OP, if that is your camera ring then I'm curious to see the rest of your device
P.S. Whoops! Too long! Sorry! But I hope somebody will read this.
You made some fine points here. But I have to disagree about the stress of the larger sapphire glass screens. There were leaked sapphire glass pieces that people got a hold of that were supposed to be the ones used on the iPhone 6 and they were very durable under stress.
Only diamond can scratch sapphire crystal.
I have some SC watches , all of them are perfect even after ~10 years of wearing. I even tried intentionally to scratch them with keys, screwdriver and sand paper (great bar bet lol).
Unless the OP used a diamond ring, it is safe to say apple doesn't use SC for the lens cover.
I think iThingsGurl is right. (#33)
Were they cohered with the phone's back shell or just screens? Because a material can exhibit different properties when in isolation and when in unison with other materials. Thats because in presence of a back shell, since all the edges of the glass sheet are conjoined with the respective edges of the back shell the force cannot be distributed as much as it would in isolation - the stress leading to cracks.
Of course, I am not criticizing your point for I may be totally wrong as I don't know much about this stuff
I assume you've never owned a decent wrist watch? Most decent wrist watches have sapphire crystals. They can and do become scratched.
With his qualification ("easily"), I think it was a fair statement. Sapphire glass can scratch, as you say, but not easily, compared to mineral glass. It can also shatter, as the other post notes, but that's a different issue.
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Sapphire can scratch itself as well. Sand can too because it essentially contains sapphire. If I recall correctly, tungsten carbide is pretty close to the same hardness as sapphire glass, I imagine it could do some damage in the right circumstances.
Sapphire is scratch resistant, not some invincible super material that some folks believe.
No sir Apple may not be lying. By Sapphire what Apple means is a Sapphire Glass and not Sapphire Crystal.
The Mohs scale is only used to get an approximate idea of an unknown mineral hardness as an aid in its identification. For example if an unknown mineral can scratch Topaz (8), and Corundum (9) can scratch it, then you would only know that the hardness is somewhere between 8 and 9.
Sapphire glass is sapphire crystal that has been artificially formed into a transparent sheet. It still has the same hardness and scratch resistance as regular sapphire because that's what it is.
