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Behind Apple's Sapphire Screen Debacle

Posted by timothy on from the creative-managment dept.

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."

4 of 189 comments (clear)

  1. Than don't sign the contract by ssufficool · · Score: 5, Insightful

    In other news: A company so desperate to get into bed with Apple signs away their soul for rainbows and promises.

    1. Re:Than don't sign the contract by Cesare+Ferrari · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Indeed, sounds like a very one sided description of what went wrong. On the one hand, they say they are experts in doing something that other people couldn't, but then say it's apple's fault that their technology didn't work. Hmm, something wrong with this explanation.

    2. Re:Than don't sign the contract by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

      it's a classic case of "customer knows better" and they have all the money so you have to do what they say.

      GT is too excited to get into business with Apple. Apple is so excited about their super secret sapphire plant they won't let the people they PAID do the job they're PAID to do.

      I've seen this at smaller companies all the time. Automakers are also famous for it. They sign up mom-n-pop shops and basically take them over till they run out of business... in the auto industry it's practically a revolving door of these type of deals.

  2. Can see how this happened by russotto · · Score: 5, Insightful

    The salespeople saw money. The business people, who would normally assess risk, got blinded by the prospect of making huge amounts of money. The engineers who could see disaster coming were not consulted or ignored.