Corning Glass executive Tony Tripeny mentioned in a conference call earlier today that there are many negative points to using sapphire crystal in a mobile device, which is a move that many deem Apple to take with the next generation iPhone. Corning executives CFO James Flaws and SVP and Corporate Controller Tripeny have weighed in on the situation, where the latter shared, “When we look at it, we see a lot of disadvantages of Sapphire versus Gorilla Glass. It’s about 10 times more expensive. It’s about 1.6 times heavier. It’s environmentally unfriendly. It takes about 100 times more energy to generate a Sapphire crystal than it does glass. It transmits less light which…means either dimmer devices or shorter battery life. It continues to break.”
I suppose some might call this a biased remark, considering how Corning has been providing Gorilla Glass for numerous devices out there, although I am quite sure that Tripeny would not have shared any of the above without any prior evidence. Sapphire, however, happens to be a highly scratch resistant material, but tests have indicated Gorilla Glass to be able to withstand 2.5 times more pressure. What do you think of the use of sapphire in a future Apple device? I suppose if the environment were to take a hit, it would not go down too well with most people.
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