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Corning Reveals Gorilla Glass 4, Promises No More Broken IPhones
An anonymous reader writes "Corning introduced next-generation Gorilla Glass, which it said is ten times tougher than any competitive cover glass now in the market. The company says that the Gorilla Glass 4 so launched is to address the No.1 problem among the smartphones users- screen breakage due to everyday drops."
The article says "two times tougher than any competitive cover glass now in the market". The post reads "ten".
First article says:
Apple supplier Corning on Thursday introduced its next-generation Gorilla Glass, which it said is two times tougher than any competitive cover glass now in the market.
Second article says:
Apple supplier Corning on Thursday introduced next-generation Gorilla Glass, which it said is ten times tougher than any competitive cover glass now in the market.
Now I can upgrade to the next iPhone.
Then when they announce Gorilla Glass x+1 I can upgrade to the next iPhone!
and Repeat...
News just in! Products get better incrementally, somehow only controversial when Apple does it. Film at 11.
How am I supposed to be different if my phone's screen looks like everyone else's?
www.gaiageek.com
Who competes with Corning? Seriously, my 200$ Chinese android phone has gorilla glass. I have yet to see a modern smartphone not have gorilla glass.
622677120
Please tell us how they achieved this feat or materials engineering.
I'm only half-kidding. over the past year or two, there's been a nifty cottage industry of small storefronts that perform screen replacements on cell phones. If that number gets cut in half, things are going to get interesting for these store owners. Also, if the phones are not only more shatter resistant but scratch resistant as well, I wonder if it would (forgive the pun) make a dent in sales of Otterbox and other impact resistant cases. Not only would this impact Otter Products, but also many retailers, since cases tend to be a high-margin upsell, so their profits would slip.
Similarly, I wonder if the new glass will be reflected in Asurion premiums. If they're replacing statistically half the phones (I'll believe the "2x" number rather than the "10x" number for the sake of this post), shouldn't the premiums reflect this as the company is taking a lower risk? I know the general thinking is "zomg moar hookerz for the see-ee-ohes!!!111", but I generally don't know if there's some legislative edict that requires insurance premiums to reflect the risk being taken.
Cause nobody hypes their shit as much as apple and its legion of zombies.
Wrong. Apple are outdone on that front by Samsung, MS... You really should check your facts before showing the rest of /. how wrong you are. Some of us actually RTFA, read relevant info, and post knowingly. Hater.
Every time I've seen someone with broken screen, it was an iPhone. It's about time Apple did this, but then they do profit by making phones that need repairs/ replacing.
Great news on the glass, all for it. But it's still too difficult to repair and replace the glass (and batteries) on these phones due to the adhesive.
Gently reply
Android owners aren't stupid enough to constantly drop their phones.
If you have a naked phone, what do you expect?
Fuck, I drop mine at least one a month onto something solid. Of course if it hits a stone, or the edge of a rough surface, it's going to scratch or shatter.
Put it in the most basic of cases so the force (not the sharpness) goes to the screen and it's fine. I have never, in my life, broken or scratched an electronic device like that.
And, honestly, yes, I've had some doozies! When you phone cartwheels down a set of marble staircases in a hotel, and smashes so hard every component falls out, you think it's game over. Pick it up, put it back together, all works just fine.
What phone? Galaxy Ace (the cheapest junk you could buy at the time), S4 mini, etc..
Electronics don't survive mishandling. But a four-foot drop onto concrete is nothing. Absolutely nothing. Your pen survives it. Your USB stick survives it. I've seen laptops survive it (but that's mostly luck, admittedly). But your remote controls don't shatter into a million pieces when you drop them off the sofa. I've seen plates and bowl survive worse unscathed.
It's all a matter of dampening and removing the sharpest points. It takes one, tiny, shard of stone a few mm tall to be the pressure point that smashes your screen. Put it in the cheapest case from Amazon, it's covered with 2-3 mm of foam or board, no more pressure point.
I have launched phones (accidentally) across entire school playgrounds. Not once have I broken one, except once the plastic on the battery catch went loose and I had to pay about 1GBP to replace it.
Phones used to have raised edges, the screen would be the last thing to contact the floor. When you have a phone where the front is entirely glass, edge-to-edge, nothing is going to save you if you drop it. Except putting a wrap around it.
I blame Apple "design" again - yeah, looks pretty. Totally fucking impractical, however, and unfit for purpose. Gimme a 2mm raised edge around it and I'll never have to replace the screen. Fuck, just unpacking iPads and iPhone from the box can be a hazard because their "design" teams didn't think to put fucking fingerholes in the packaging. You either have to shake the thing upside-down or tear your brand-new box. I know, I unpacked 200 over the summer for the school I work in. It was a damn nightmare.
Apple's takes "design" to mean "looks pretty". I take it to me "is a good engineering way to make this device that makes it look pretty as well as be user-friendly". Stop making phones with edge-to-edge glass if you expect people to use them in the real world. I'll happily pay the cost of an Apple device for a Samsung device that has a completely rubberised raised exterior.
Cause nobody hypes their shit as much as apple and its legion of zombies.
1. Apple isn't hyping this. Corning is. Apple has a policy of not hyping what they aren't selling. They don't pre-announce features.
2. Nearly all companies hype their products. But if it involves Apple, more people pay attention.
From the PCMag article: "The company said it survives drops up to 80 percent of the time." That's from a three foot drop. Corning does not promise no more broken iPhone screens as the headline reads. Slashdot, please stop with the click bait headlines. Present facts, please.
the OEMs will use GG4's extra strength to make their phones 0.2mm thinner instead, because thin is more important than strength or battery life.
Or you know, the actually given reason, that the sapphire glass was too brittle in the iPhone, makes even more sense.
from the PC Mag article:
"They found that Gorilla Glass 4 is up to two times tougher than competitive glass. The company said it survives drops up to 80 percent of the time."
Flip phone.
Have gnu, will travel.
I really doubt they promise "no more broken iPhones" when the video admits they only prevent 80% of breaks. That still leaves 1 in 5 broken.
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
It works for my glasses well enough.
.
Prisencolinensinainciusol. Ol Rait!
Getting a bit defensive, are we? Vested interest? Gorilla Glass is made by Corning not Apple, so I'm not sure what you're babbling about.
What do you mean? I was directly replying to a brave coward who went for a cheap apple bash.
Is replying to that comment with an opposing opinion "getting defensive"? Isn't this a discussion forum?
Oh, right. I understand.
That was NASA's mistake. The mirror was made to spec, but NASA didn't work out how it would deform in orbit/a microgravity environment.
That's an interesting claim, but entirely fictional, as far as I can tell. I followed the story closely at the time, and in the end, every report I saw put the blame on a defective Perkin-Elmer null corrector assembly (reserving some blame for NASA's inadequate oversight of their development and testing processes).
Why are you trying to rewrite history?
It was Perkin-Elmers fault. The backup mirror made by Kodak was flawless. That couldn't have happened if the spec was wrong.
I am becoming gerund, destroyer of verbs.
Fuck, I drop mine at least one a month onto something solid.
I guess the problem is you... I've had my iPhone for almost 4 years now, cracked the screen once from hitting a stone floor but I don't blame it and a case adds annoyingly much bulk, I tried it and stopped. It's different from back when the screen was a small auxiliary to a phone, using the screen is now the main purpose of a smartphone. That means it needs to be way bigger and more exposed, Apple or not.
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
Every time I've seen someone with broken screen, it was an iPhone. It's about time Apple did this, but then they do profit by making phones that need repairs/ replacing.
About time Apple did what? Made their phones deliberately out of the best material available at the time and now out of a subsequently even better material made by a third party supplier that they don't control?
What did you think they are "about timing"? Making new phones out of a material that has only just been announced?
I'm not following.
Maybe they use the best material available, and then make it too thin ?
"UP TO two times tougher than competitive glass"
"survives drops UP TO 80 percent of the time"
Just meaningless weasel words.
that way, they can also get a phone that is only one version behind the latest one from Google.
Sleep your way to a whiter smile...date a dentist!
"UP TO two times tougher than competitive glass" "survives drops UP TO 80 percent of the time"
Just meaningless weasel words.
It's not meaningless at all. It means exactly what it says: The glass is somewhere between negative infinity times and 2 times tougher than competitive glass. And it survives drops somewhere between 0 percent and 80 percent of the time.
So be sure and take those figures into consideration when considering buying the product.
If you are not allowed to question your government then the government has answered your question.
The sapphire was for their iWatch and sapphire or ruby crystals are commonly used in high-end watches. I'm not sure if it is too brittle for a phone screen, but it is probably too expensive.
The real problem is that it is difficult to replace the glass It it was simple to replace the relative low cost of replacement would mean the occasional breakage wouldn't be a significant problem.
It's so far past "about time" they need to change their product name. Everyone knows gorilla glass means cheap crap that shatters on impact.
Who do you think we are, iPhone users?
About time Apple did what? Made their phones deliberately out of the best material available at the time and now out of a subsequently even better material made by a third party supplier that they don't control?
Made phones which don't have glass faces that run all the way to the edges.
Not possible... Slashdot has more than 10 users.
An article I read about the sapphire producer claimed that the primary reason it wasn't used for the iPhone was that they simply couldn't get the yields needed to support the volume.
http://online.wsj.com/articles...
There's a paywall, but googling the title in a private window might get you a good link (worked for me).
Sorry to disappoint you, but everybody knows that Slashdot has exactly 8 actual users, 3,564,372 sockpuppet accounts, and an AI at the U of Illinois Champaign/Urbana that makes all of the AC posts as a way to blow off steam after dealing with grad students all day.
Il n'y a pas de Planet B.
I have an old T-mobile Galaxy II (989) that supposedly has gorilla glass on the screen. I've dropped it numerous times and it's never once broken or shattered, and it's now an ancient phone by internet standards. Yet I've seen countless iphones with broken glass. Perhaps the more flimsy, plasticy Android phones actually have an advantage here by flexing instead of shattering? Or is there some other reason this is an Apple problem?
Yep - you can go look it up on any number of articles for confirmation, but the current state of sapphire screens is that they are heavier/thicker, more brittle, require more power due to lower transmission of light, and are much more expensive.
The *only* advantage right now is sapphire is almost impossible to scratch with normal use (assuming you don't routinely carry piles of loose diamonds around in your front pocket). Hence it's used for lenses, the new fingerprint-recognition, home button, and the iWatch screen, where scratch resistance is the #1 concern.
This was moderated as informative? Wow!
Can't wait for transparisteel... (In all seriousness, why aren't phones using Aluminium oxynitride instead of Sapphire glass or Gorilla Glass?)
Wrong. Apple are outdone on that front by Samsung, MS... You really should check your facts before showing the rest of /. how wrong you are. Some of us actually RTFA, read relevant info, and post knowingly. Hater.
Seems you need to take your own advice.
/. how wrong you are.
You should know that the $14 billion is for all Samsung Electronics products, everything from TV's to speakers to DVD players to car audio. It also covers things like sports team sponsorships (local and national). Of that $14 billion, only $401 Million was spent on phone advertising, Apple spent $333 Million in the same period whilst Samsung sells more phones, more models and across more segments. So on a phone to advertising dollar ratio, Apple spends a lot more.
Beyond all this, your article that you clearly didn't read demonstrated that this paid off for Samsung. Sure they tried to get an inflammatory "Apple pleasing" headline in but utterly failed as the content proved that Samsung's splurge on advertising worked. Also that article is 2 years old. The data is from 2012.
Besides, the GP was talking about hype, not advertising dollars. Apple whips the fanboys, like yourself into a huge frenzy over almost anything. The fact you need to cling onto little things like advertising spending shows how detached from reality you are.
So you really should check your own facts before showing
Hater.
See my sig.
Calling someone a "hater" only means you can not rationally rebut their argument.
If you have a naked phone, what do you expect?
I expect it to survive an accidental drop.
I've never had a phone cover, they've all survived trips to the floor without shattering... then again I buy phones that are built properly.
Also, I tend to be a little bit careful with my things. I'd be lucky if I drop my phone every six months.
Calling someone a "hater" only means you can not rationally rebut their argument.
The collapse of a competitive advantage crystal lens product in GT Advanced which was summarily driven into the ground, bankrupted and which failure narily caused a single Apple iPhone shipment delay.
Any problems connecting dots, seeing the landscape and strategy now?
Calling someone a "hater" only means you can not rationally rebut their argument.
A signature like that is strongly suggestive of someone prone to be an asshole in public, then.
People who say "sheeple" have about as much sophistication as an AOL user, and in fact are probably actually AOL users.
I can thoroughly recommend The New Science of Strong Materials or Why You Don't Fall through the Floor by J.E. Gordon, which even has a positive review by Bill Gates.
Finding something that is:
is challenging. Sapphire gets a pass for Hard and a (mostly) Transparent.
Protoplasm. Quiet Protoplasm. I like quiet protoplasm.
I dropped my Galaxy S5 out of my hand when walking and it completely smashed the glass. I am shocked how fragile the new phone was compared to my older Nexus S. I am on the hook for a $250+ bill to get it repaired.
I have no clue how you can engineer a mobile phone which can't withstand a drop from that distance. I will never buy another Samsung product again.
Perhaps a good way to protect the screen is to put it "inside", open the phone like a laptop when you want to use it like a computer, else it looks and works like a dumbphone when folded. The first smartphone was like that (Nokia 9000, 1996)
"UP TO two times tougher than competitive glass" "survives drops UP TO 80 percent of the time"
Just meaningless weasel words.
It's not meaningless at all. It means exactly what it says: The glass is somewhere between negative infinity times and 2 times tougher than competitive glass. And it survives drops somewhere between 0 percent and 80 percent of the time. So be sure and take those figures into consideration when considering buying the product.
This post is up to twice as informative as the original article
And the one weird bot somewhere deep Russia which posts the random "m0d do3n must charted have BSD come as" message to every article.
I've got a Samsung S3 with a broken screen sitting at home. I was getting out of our truck with my hands full, and my phone fell. I think it actually broke when it hit the running board. My fault, and these things happen. I have a new screen to put on it, but I haven't gotten a heat gun yet to remove the old one. I didn't know how easy they were to replace until I was at a car dealer, and the financing guy saw the broken phone and showed me the kit to replace the screen, and says he does it all the time for friends and family. (He happened to have one in his office because a coworker had broken her phone.)
Your phone is a sample size of one, compared to countless iPhones. It would be more meaningful to compare the average breakage rate of all Galaxy S2s sold vs its contemporary iPhone model's breakage rate.
You should know that the $14 billion is for all Samsung Electronics products, everything from TV's to speakers to DVD players to car audio. It also covers things like sports team sponsorships (local and national). Of that $14 billion, only $401 Million was spent on phone advertising,
Way to prove your point by mixing world wide spending with US spending, deliberately or not.
Of course news about a fake are Fake News.
A bit more detail: the assembly included a rod (of an precise length) that was inserted into a socket which consisted of a ring that was welded or braised to something else. The fastening technique left a small amount of slag or solder around the inner edge of the ring, and so the rod was chamfered on one end so that it would clear the slag and seat fully in the socket.
Problem was, the rod was inserted upside down, with that attractively chamfered end sticking out. And the neatly cut business end ended up bottoming on the slag, resulting in a part that was precisely built but off by 1.3 mm.
When they eventually tracked down the problem, they were able to use the mis-aligned jig as a model for designing the corrective mirror that they eventually installed.
They're so cheap, it's better to replace them?
No broken is broken.
If you want to replace one that is all well and good.
I have found that the the old phone makes a handy media
player. With Chromecast and youtube, netflix or whatever a
little phone can be happy serving up music or streaming video
via WiFi.
But broken is broken... not good for anything worth doing.
Oh and BTW this second life is the biggest reason all my
phones must have a replaceable battery. AND on the sad
day that a phone goes swimming or a run through the laundry
a short visit to the phone store I can activate the old one. I
can get a prepaid SIM for travel where roaming plans or message
rates go nuts. Because it is a novel number I get little or
no "hey good buddy" expensive ill timed calls from many time zones
away.
Truth is stranger than fiction, but it is because Fiction is obliged to stick to possibilities; Truth isn't. Mark Twain.
then again I buy phones that are built properly
I can see you with a jewelers monocle going over the phone in the store. "This isn't going to do..." you declare as the Genius hands you another one to look at.
I am curious to how you determine a properly built phone.
First step is to leave the Apple store and go to a manufacturer that knows what "durable" is.
Seriously, I've had HTC, Samsung, Motorola and now an LG... All of them have been able to take a drop without cracking or warping.
BTW, I'm much more eloquent than that. I'd say "no, no, no good sir, this simply isn't going to suffice".
Calling someone a "hater" only means you can not rationally rebut their argument.
Maybe the AI found a friend.
Il n'y a pas de Planet B.
Defensive, defensive, defensive. Why would you be so protective of some corporation? Do you work for Apple or are you a stockholder?
Today I learned that people with opinions counter to anonymous cowards are Apple employees or stockholders of Apple. Man, there must be a lot of them!
Why would you assume they were bashing Apple instead of Corning though? That makes no sense.
Ah yes, that well known Corning-hate on slashdot, with the frequent trope of being excited to upgrade your corning product on a short, repeating cycle like sheep.
I hardly think the original coward's target was non-obvious.
Yeah, "best" materials which is why the iPhone 6+ can't withstand anywhere near the same level of stress as a Samsung Galaxy Note 3.
You don;t seem to understand that "best" in this context doesn't refer to a literal superlative material, but to the best material currently available from a glass manufacturer at the time the product was made.
You are assuming too much, which just makes you look like an ass. It was pretty clear he was taking the piss out of Corning or just the upgrade treadmill in general. Now you're trying to justify your asshattery instead of admitting that you could be wrong.
I'm really not assuming too much at all.
Have you ever been on slashdot?
I mean, it's hard to tell how long you've been around so maybe you're not aware of the context here.
It's a design flaw with the iPhone. The slim bezel and aluminium case transfer any external impact directly to the glass screen, whereas any other phone with a plastic case can withstand the knocks better. I've had a few Samsung and HTC handsets and drop them all the time and never cracked a screen. Plastic might not sound as cool on the marketing material, but it sure as hell is the most appropriate material for this environment. And since most iPhone users by a plastic case for them anyway, the aluminium thing is pure gimmick.
Umm no. I meant that besides my own phone I've seen countless android phones of different kinds (mostly Samsung) and not one with a shattered screen. I've seen many shattered iPhones though.