Corning Pits Gorilla Glass 3 Against Sapphire, Plans Reflection Reduction and Antimicrobial Technology
Following Apple's adoption of sapphire crystal as a strong and durable covering for the rear cameras on the iPhone 5 and fifth-generation iPod touch late last year, rumors of expanded uses for the material have gained some traction. Back in March, we covered a report suggesting that sapphire could see wider adoption as coverings for displays on mobile devices, and just last week a sketchy rumor claimed that Apple is planning to use a sapphire-covered capacitive home button with integrated fingerprint sensor for the iPhone 5S.
Amid these discussions of the potential of sapphire, Corning has published a feature outlining why its latest Gorilla Glass 3 is in fact already a better option than sapphire for mobile device displays, citing greater strength, lower weight, less energy cost in production, and significantly lower pricing. And with those features has come widespread adoption, with Corning reporting that over 1.5 billion devices have been made with Gorilla Glass.
Jeffrey W. Evenson, [Corning] senior vice president, remarked, “Discussion seems to center around sapphire as an obvious solution for a cover material. What would people say if someone invented a cover that was about half the weight, used 99 percent less energy to make, provided brighter displays, and cost less than a tenth of sapphire? I think they’d say that sapphire was in real trouble. It so happens that we at Corning already invented that cover – and it’s called Gorilla Glass.” Evenson added that the company’s tests so far indicate Gorilla Glass requires about three times more force to break than sapphire after both materials have received similar wear and tear.
Corning also discusses its latest work with Gorilla Glass, noting that the company has already trimmed the materials thickness to the point where it can be curved and shaped without losing strength. Earlier this year,
The New York Times reported that Apple was working on a
curved glass smart watch, a product that could potentially take advantage of Corning's latest Gorilla Glass advancements.
Going even further, Corning lays out its future plans for Gorilla Glass, sharing that the company is working hard on new versions that reduce reflections for better visibility in bright sunlight and which incorporate antimicrobial technology to minimize the germs which are prevalent on mobile devices.
Popular Stories
Apple is set to unveil iOS 18 during its WWDC keynote on June 10, so the software update is a little over six weeks away from being announced. Below, we recap rumored features and changes planned for the iPhone with iOS 18. iOS 18 will reportedly be the "biggest" update in the iPhone's history, with new ChatGPT-inspired generative AI features, a more customizable Home Screen, and much more....
Apple today released several open source large language models (LLMs) that are designed to run on-device rather than through cloud servers. Called OpenELM (Open-source Efficient Language Models), the LLMs are available on the Hugging Face Hub, a community for sharing AI code. As outlined in a white paper [PDF], there are eight total OpenELM models, four of which were pre-trained using the...
Apple has announced it will be holding a special event on Tuesday, May 7 at 7 a.m. Pacific Time (10 a.m. Eastern Time), with a live stream to be available on Apple.com and on YouTube as usual. The event invitation has a tagline of "Let Loose" and shows an artistic render of an Apple Pencil, suggesting that iPads will be a focus of the event. Subscribe to the MacRumors YouTube channel for more ...
There are widespread reports of Apple users being locked out of their Apple ID overnight for no apparent reason, requiring a password reset before they can log in again. Users say the sudden inexplicable Apple ID sign-out is occurring across multiple devices. When they attempt to sign in again they are locked out of their account and asked to reset their password in order to regain access. ...
Best Buy is discounting a collection of M3 MacBook Pro computers today, this time focusing on the 14-inch version of the laptop. Every deal in this sale requires you to have a My Best Buy Plus or Total membership, although non-members can still get solid second-best prices on these MacBook Pro models. Note: MacRumors is an affiliate partner with Best Buy. When you click a link and make a...
Apple used to regularly increase the base memory of its Macs up until 2011, the same year Tim Cook was appointed CEO, charts posted on Mastodon by David Schaub show. Earlier this year, Schaub generated two charts: One showing the base memory capacities of Apple's all-in-one Macs from 1984 onwards, and a second depicting Apple's consumer laptop base RAM from 1999 onwards. Both charts were...
Top Rated Comments
On a side note, I'm far more concerned about scratches than I am about accidentally placing 96% of my body weight directly on my phone against a small diameter metal surface.
Glad to see that Corning know how to bias a test to make their produce seem much better than it is, Gorilla Glass is much more flexible, of course it is going to do better in a normal force pressure test. On the other hand, unlike sapphire its less hard than sand, and so scratches like a *****. Who do they think they are fooling? No industry expert is going to watch that and think "that Gorilla Glass 3 really is going to solve our durability problem". Breaking a phone by smashing its screen like they do in the test never ever ever happens. You never get an isolated layer like that which is allowed to deflect to failure. You get an impact on an edge which causes a fast fracture. Its down to phone companies to design smarter to protect the vulnerable edges which are a problem associated with all glasses and pick a material which keeps the surface nice and mirror-clean.
I'd be pretty sassy if I carried 3 tablets and a bitchin' smartphone around. He's got cash to spare.