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Behind Apple's Sapphire Screen Debacle
Frankie70 (803801) writes Apple invested more than $1 billion in an effort to make sapphire one of iPhone 6's selling point. But the iPhone 6 was released without the sapphire screen. GT Advanced Technologies, the small company chosen to supply Apple with enormous quantities of cheap sapphire, declared bankruptcy a month later. Recent documents from GT's bankruptcy proceedings, and conversations with people familiar with operations at Apple and GT, provide several clues as to what went wrong. GT said that to save costs, Apple decided not to install backup power supplies, and multiple outages ruined whole batches of sapphire. The terms Apple negotiated committed GT to supplying a huge amount of sapphire, but put Apple under no obligation to buy it. In its bankruptcy documents, GT would later accuse Apple of using "bait-and-switch" tactics, and said the terms of the deal were "onerous and massively one-sided."
Anybody mind telling me what sapphire is & why its so special?
Yes, but in this case, they weren't allowed to sell the glass they made to anyone but Apple, and if the goods were rejected, then by contract, they couldn't sell them to another company.
It's not that cut and dried. Apple was the one who insisted on renegotiating the contract, as well as not installing a backup power supply for each furnace and starting production in a non-commissioned plant.
Apple originally offered to buy sapphire-growing furnaces from GT. But according to sources familiar with negotiations, after five months Apple demanded a major change in terms, requiring GT to supply the sapphire itself. In fact, Apple wanted GT to build the world’s largest factory to produce the stuff—more than doubling the world’s entire sapphire production capacity.
Producing sapphire requires a very clean environment, but ongoing construction at the factory meant that sapphire was grown "in a highly contaminated environment that adversely affected the quality of sapphire material," according to GT. It also requires uninterrupted supplies of water and electricity to regulate the temperature of the molten aluminum oxide used to form the boule. GT said that to save costs, Apple decided not to install backup power supplies, and multiple outages ruined whole batches of sapphire.
Make no mistake about it - Apple was in the driver's seat in this mess. It was their deadline for the iPhone6 that set the stage for attempts to grow sapphire in an unfinished factory. But Apple will find a way to make money out of this.
"Transparent" is a shit show that trades on every stereotype going. A man in drag is NOT a transsexual.
IBM had used Micropolis drives back when 5MB was a common size. They insisted that Micropolis buy new production equipment to make the 40s in enough quantity to supply the projected PC demand, then IBM chose another vendor, leaving Micropolis with a lot of production capacity for which to pay, and no customer. Bye-Bye, Micropolis.
This isn't uncommon in industry (it's also not the normal way of things). If we want to to be certain that a supplier builds something the right way, we might specify every detail of the tooling, and sometimes buy it and install it ourselves.
--Jim (me)
GT never produced sapphire prior to this arrangement, they manufactured photo-voltaic silicon. Apple was looking to produce sapphire on a scale needed for their iPhone, something nobody had done before. GT convinced them they could do it. Apple required an exclusivity clause because they didn't want to invest any money unless they got all the sapphire and in return, the production process would be owned by GT. Apple bought the facilities in Arizona and loaned GT money to manage the operations. It was a large gamble that GT was willing to take. Apple's position carried less risk because they have a strong cash position and could continue to use Gorilla glass. When production yields where bad and GT didn't meet its obligations, Apple decided not to buy any sapphire. For its part, Apple did agree to renegotiate the contract to help GT, as they held out hope that GT could perfect the process after the iPhone 6 shipped. Unfortunately, GT's cash position deteriorated to a point where they needed bankruptcy protection.
Sapphire ***IS*** extremely true scratch resistant (as in the surface atoms resist displacement) because sapphire is BRITTLE.
Well... no. Sapphire is extremely scratch resistant and sapphire is relatively brittle. Just because something is scratch resistant does not mean it has to be brittle. Gorilla glass is, for example, both harder and tougher than normal glass. Diamond is both harder and tougher (iirc) than sapphire.
Perhaps they know that their customers are mostly fans who will always buy whatever overpriced gadget they throw at them
Or it could be Apple Haters do not and never will understand the reasons why people buy iPhones, and keep buying them after the first one.
It's also always been a puzzle to be how Apple Haters claim Apple has over-priced phones when the are the same price in and out of contract as other supposedly high-end phones.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
They always have. The original iPhone was the first smartphone to use Gorilla glass, created by Corning at Apple's prompting. iPhones have continued to use the best available Gorilla glass continually on every single iPhone since. The screen on a Samsung is no more scratch resistant than the iPhone--your anecdotes are either coincidence or just you making shit up. Guess where my money is.