'iPhone 6' survives FRENZIED STABBING. Truly, it is the JESUS Phone A bloke on the internet has attempted to stab to bits what he describes as an Apple "iPhone 6" - but was stopped dead by the gizmo's frontispiece, perhaps fashioned of wondro-material "sapphire glass". Marques Brownlee, a Youtube tech reviewer who goes under the name MKBHD, managed to get his hands on two dummy models of what …
Quartz is a 7 on the MoHs scale of mineral hardness. Glass is 5.5, hardened steel is 7.5, sapphire is 9. So it is not surprising that sand would scratch glass, but it will not scratch sapphire. Nor is it surprising that he failed to scratch it with a knife point.
I am utterly shocked it is as flexible as his video showed, however.
Indeed, sapphire is extremely hard. I have a rather expensive Rado wristwatch that has a sapphire face cover. It's virtually indestructible and will take any amount of bashing and scraping. They harden the metal as well, mind you, to make the whole thing ultra scratch proof. People have looked on in shock as I've deliberately scraped it along brick and concrete walls for a laugh. It's 10 years old and it looks like I bought it yesterday. NB I don't work for Rado.
I wonder if Apple will ever get that Liquid Metal thing to work. One of its claimed properties is to be extremely resistant to scratches, harder than the hardest steels. So long as it is harder than quartz, it wouldn't scratch in most situations (short of trying to scratch it with a gemstone or carbide tipped tool)
If they have sapphire on front and still have aluminum on back, they'll still get scratched it just won't impede your view of the screen...
I've been carting a liquid metal usb stick around in my pocket for years. It's not so much scratched as developed a kind of patina. I've been annoyed with Apple for a long time now for stitching up the liquid metal contract; I would defo love another higher capacity usb stick made with it, damn good stuff.
@Mike Bell
You complete swine. I'd never heard of Rado, went to the site and looked at their watches and found one that's just what I've been looking for, elegant and incredibly understated. As far as the price goes, *ouch* is an understatement, and I'd be afraid to wear it in case I lost it.
I think it would actually.
Certainly as the video demonstrates the flat surface on the front (and presumably back) of the panel are very durable. But I suspect repeated high speed impacst from sharp blades in the Blendtec blender to the thin edges of the panel would do some more serious damage.
Probably....but there's a chance the blades might just sort of bounce it up above the blades and it'll be continually bouncing off the blades and the sides/top of the blender until it is shut off. That's why I'd like to see it, because one can't be certain it will turn into a sandy grit within seconds as would be the case if one did this with a glass panel.
The book of Jobs, Chapter 3, verses III-IV:
Therefore took Marques a blade and it was put upon the flesh of The Lord's new phone smiteth could it not.
And the people spake unto him "What about keys?"
And thus did Marques look upon the crowd with dismay and shout "Verily, doubters, I presenteth these sharp tools - See!", yet no fresh wound sprang forth, and there was much gnashing and wailing of teeth among the people, and all around got down on their knees and prayed for forgiveness to The Lord for having purchased an android.
That was the end of the Lesson.
"Mr MKBHD writes that he is "pumped" for the release of the iPhone 6, which we're hoping means he will be more ambitious in his choice of weaponry for the next video."
I immediately misread that as hoping he wasn't getting too enthusiastic* about the prospect of getting one.
My mind is broken today, I think.
Steven R
*I meant wanking himself into a sweaty lather. Enjoy that lunchtime mental image, everyone.
"Mr MKBHD writes that he is "pumped" for the release of the iPhone 6, which we're hoping means he will be more ambitious in his choice of weaponry for the next video."
I immediately misread that as hoping he wasn't getting too enthusiastic* about the prospect of getting one.
I think this sort of thing is more what The Reg was suggesting.
This post has been deleted by its author
This is really impressive. I suspect guerilla marketing from Apple if this is genuinely their new screen, but I don't care. I really, really like to see technology such as this in phones.
In fact if it's that tough, I'd like to see an entire phone case made out of it so that I can see the phone hardware inside. Can this be moulded into something other than a flat plane?
In any case, beautiful technology.
On most modern phones, a clear rear cover is really only going to show you the battery, since it takes up the vast bulk of space behind the rear cover. That's probably a big part of why, when Google/LG and Apple made phones with glass backs, they chose not to show the phone's innards.
Glass is a relatively poor heat conductor, so making a whole phone out of it might cause some cooling issues. I love the glass and stainless steel sandwich design concept, but Apple seem wedded to their unibody aluminium technique now, and you can't deny the advantage to size and weight.
Over the years I've seen the odd video review where they drop a phone from 5/6ft to simulate dropping your phone on the pavement (sidewalk). Drop it into a bucket of water - to simulate (it's lunch time so I won’t pollute your mind with that mental image - Thank you Steven R - bar-steward), all reasonably average simulations of what might happen to a phone real life.
But an "assault rifle"?
all reasonably average simulations of what might happen to a phone real life.
But an "assault rifle"?
Well, on the risk of this being in poor taste, that appears to be real life in the US if the reports of shopping mall and school shootings are anything to go by. Maybe the phone of choice in states with "stand your ground" laws..
"It is an extremely high quality material and really durable. It's paper thin - like literally the same thickness as a piece of paper - and totally see-through. I would say zero per cent opacity,"
So...toughened glass is both (a) tough, (b) transparent (sapphire glass has been around for years and years) but because it's associated with an Apple product he feels the need to get all tumescent about it.
>>"but because it's associated with an Apple product he feels the need to get all tumescent about it."
I don't even own any Apple products and I think this is cool. Just because tech companies are treated like football teams by some tragic cases, doesn't mean many of us don't just really like good technology and science.
"Who keeps their phone in their pocket?! I keep mine under my bowler hat."
How positively vulgar. A real gentleman has his manservant carry his mobile communication apparatus a respectable 10 paces** behind his master.
** unless he is required to open doors, clear the labouring classes out of the way etc.
Apple spent over a billion dollars in an exclusive deal with GT Advanced to build a special factory to expand the worldwide sapphire production by 10x to get enough for their use, and it took several years of planning, research and building to make this happen. This isn't something other companies can just buy on the open market, not in the volumes needed for anything more than a limited production run of a low volume product.
If Samsung or whoever wanted to do this, it would take them at least a couple years to do so, unless they already started working on it when the first rumors about Apple and GT Advanced surfaced.
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