The iPhone 6 apparently won’t be made from sapphire glass, as previous rumors have claimed, according to a report on Monday.
There’s been rampant speculation that Apple will use sapphire after it bought plants in Arizona and Massachusetts to make the hardened, artificial glass.
The Telegraph, citing “Trendforce’s LEDinside analysts,” reported that the material does not seem to be used in factories producing the next iPhone, which are said to come in two varieties with a release date in mid-September.
The report added there’s “dsappointingly low yield rates of sapphire glass,” but the material might be used for later Apple smartphones.
Sapphire is considered the second-hardest material next to diamond. It’s used on the iPhone 5S home button and camera lens.
Hutch Hutchison, who heads the design wing at UK firm Vertu, said sapphire takes a long time to make, costs a lot, and requires a lot of energy to produce.
“Sapphire crystal is an incredibly tough, high quality material and this makes it perfect for luxury mobile phone screens. It is virtually impossible to damage and it will maintain a perfect, scratch free finish for many years,” he was quoted as saying. “It can take two weeks to grow each boule and the yield from each is low. It is also very difficult to cut, grind and polish; diamond tools have to be used for all of these processes.”
On Monday, another internal component of the next-gen Apple handset was leaked. Blog Nowhereelse posted images that apparently show the iPhone 6 printed circuit board, coming from a source inside of China. The board apparently also fits on the smaller, 4.7-inch model.
The source told Nowhereelse that the iPhone 6--also said to be coming in a larger, 5.5-inch variant---will have an NFC chip with faster Wi-Fi ac speeds, which is a new feature for iPhones.
“A recent report said that Apple will launch its own mobile payment system later this year, possibly alongside the iPhone 6 models, with NFC being one of the possible wireless choices for the company of establishing a secure connection between iPhones and payment terminals,” writes BGR, which added that “the leaked logic board does not have any of the chips you'd expect to see on it, and appears to fit the 4.7-inch iPhone 6 model.”
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