One man’s pleasure is another man’s pain. Apple just piddled away hundreds of millions in the Arizona dessert. To whit, Corning is celebrating that failure the launch of Gorilla Glass 4, which wouldn’t exist but for Tim Cook’s first big humiliation.
Rumor has it that Apple sapphire died in the Arizona dessert. That is, Apple supplier GT Advanced Technology sealed the fate of high volume sapphire manufacturing when it declared bankruptcy last month.
Bad break for Apple? Perhaps, but that’s good news for Gorilla Glass maker Corning, which gets to keep Apple as a customer for the foreseeable future.
And, Corning is celebrating their good fortune by launching Gorilla Glass 4, which still isn’t as hard as sapphire. But, what the heck, that’s not a problem for at least another year or so.
Yahoo Tech, a site I’m paying attention to now because Firefox dumped Google for Bing, is reporting the arrival of Gorilla Glass 4.
That unbranded black glass slab looks somehow familiar, but I can’t place a logo on it. Help me out, who’s smartphone looks like that? Geez, it’s on the tip of my tongue…
For what it’s worth, Corning claims Gorilla Glass 4 is tougher than ever and, although it will still break when enough force is applied, it’s the toughest Gorilla Glass Corning has ever made.
“I won’t say we’ve wiped it out, but we’ve taken a real large chunk out of it,” said Cliff Hund, president of Corning East Asia, adding that “there are no downsides” to Gorilla Glass 4’s improved damage resistance and emphasized that it allows for the same optical clarity as prior versions.”
Gorilla Glass 4 is good. However, it would have been more than good if Apple’s great sapphire experiment in the Arizona dessert had given us something revolutionary…
What’s your take?