I’ve had three iPhones in the past two years, having smashed my iPhone 5 fumbling with my mailbox.
My sister, a 22-year-old, is the worst when it comes to iPhones. I swear she has single-handedly moved Apple’s stock from $400 to $500. She’ll buy a phone, break it, deal with it or fix it at the mall, and then break it again. At this moment, I currently have a friendly wager with her that her current 5s will be broken within the month. I’ll keep you updated.
There is no worse feeling than that half-second from when your iPhone leaves your hand to when it hits something hard. You pick up the phone, knowing that you’ll now have to deal with the spider cracks across the front. Gone is the beauty of owning an iPhone, as now you have a broken iPhone. It is functional and, for the most part, still does what you need it to — but it just is not the same.
All this might be changing, and boy, is it a game changer. It is no rumor that Apple is planning on using Sapphire Crystal in an upcoming device, whether it be a iPhone or the rumored iWatch, but I don’t believe the average consumer understands what this means. See below:
Just imagine no fear when that phone flies out of your hand, hitting a sharp corner or a hard surface. Imagine those minuscule scratches not being apparent on a device of just six months of use. A phone that could be considered tougher than most, without a case, with the popularity of an iPhone.
This will be copied. Samsung will come in and have a Sapphire Crystal phone soon after the possible iPhone is released, just like they did with the fingerprint scanner. The problem is, the new material will need new factories. Apple has already begun crafting this for the new phone, and they are doing so in the United States. This jump on the competition, and the infrastructure to support it, will allow a more expensive material be produced at cost. And while Android sales continue to rise, the profit margins for the phones will start to go up as well. Samsung will not be manufacturing their own crystal. Neither will HTC or Motorola.
They’ll either use a lesser material, like Corning’s Gorilla Glass (of which Samsung owns about 10%), or they will sell the phone at a loss. These phone makers cannot charge more because that is their product’s appeal, that they are slightly cheaper than Apple’s product.
This will be an exciting year in Apple world. We might see a new AppleTV, as Jared pointed to yesterday. We’ll probably see a watch. And we might get a phone that you can drop a cinderblock on.
