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How Apple's Billion Dollar Sapphire Bet Will Pay Off

Posted by Soulskill on from the sapphires-now-require-proprietary-connectors dept.

alphadogg writes: "Apple is making a billion dollar bet on sapphire as a strategic material for mobile devices such as the iPhone, iPad and perhaps an iWatch. Exactly what the company plans to do with the scratch-resistant crystal – and when – is still the subject of debate. Apple is creating its own supply chain devoted to producing and finishing synthetic sapphire crystal in unprecedented quantities. The new Mesa, Arizona plant, in a partnership with sapphire furnace maker GT Advanced Technologies, will make Apple one of the world's largest sapphire producers when it reaches full capacity, probably in late 2014. By doing so, Apple is assured of a very large amount of sapphire and insulates itself from the ups and downs of sapphire material pricing in the global market."

4 of 195 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Well. by Seraphim1982 · · Score: 4, Informative

    Sapphire is hard... 9 on the Mohs scale, and the only substance harder is natural and synthetic diamond.

    Lots of things are harder then Sapphire, particularly carbides and borides. Examples include silicon carbide, titanium carbide, boron (the hardest element) boron carbide, and boron nitride.

    I find it difficult to believe... so...do you have any references that says Gorilla Glass is cheaper and harder than Sapphire?

    No one ever said it was harder, they said it was stronger.

  2. Re:Well. by R3d+M3rcury · · Score: 4, Informative

    silicon carbide, titanium carbide, boron (the hardest element) boron carbide, and boron nitride.

    All of which would make a really crappy screen cover.

  3. Re:Well. by gnupun · · Score: 5, Informative
    Sapphire is second hardest material (1st is diamond) known and much more scratch resistant than gorilla glass. This is the best feature of sapphire glass. Check out the youtube video in this article -- even a concrete block can't scratch the sapphire glass. However, sapphire glass has many disadvantages:
    • *10x more expensive than gorilla glass
    • *1.6 times heavier than gorilla glass
    • *Higher refractive index so it's dimmer and therefore consumes more battery power to get same brightness as gorilla glass. A phone user is very interested in this property.
    • *Not environmentally friendly (energy consumption very high to produce glass)
  4. Bullshit - don't believe marketing materials by Wdi · · Score: 4, Informative

    Sapphire is *not* the second hardest material known. Yes, it's written in the linked article, but it is also definitely wrong. It is hard, and it is harder than glass. That is all there is. Besides diamond. many other materials, such as some forms of boronnitride, rhenium and osmium borides, and a collection of carbon/boron/nitrogen mixed compounds are all far harder than sapphire.