Sapphire might not show up on the iPhone 6 but you cannot use Liquidmetal as a cautionary tale for a number of reasons:
1. Liquidmetal is not ready for mass production. The creator of Liquidmetal himself stated as much. It will take a couple of years for that to happen. Sapphire IS ready for mass production. The Arizona plant is cranking them out as we speak.
2. Apple entered a 20 millions contract with Liquidmetal. But the contract with GTAT is 578 millions. It shows how serious Apple is at ramping the production up by the end of 2014. You don't throw out that amount of money for just enough sapphire crystal to cover a watch's face.
3. The CEO of GTAT said this is their transformative year and predicts a 100% increase in revenue in 2014...most of that coming at the end of the year during their quarterly earning conference call. You don't make that kind of announcement if something big isn't happening. And he reiterated in the last telecon that they are on track.
4. The amount of equipments in the plant can produce way more than what is needed to cover watch faces.
By the way Liquidmetal has already granted Apple the right to use this metal in ALL commercial electronic products in perpetuity. The renewal of the contract is to allow Apple to use any new patent related to this metal alloy that might come out from their research together from now until the end of the new contract. LQMT will not earn a penny from any product that Apple produces using this metal. They do that in exchange for Apple's help at researching how to mass produce this product. So that they can offer it to other clients in fields other than commercial electronic products.
Thanks for the info about LM. But how can you be sure about the sapphire yields being too important for the watch only?
This whole article is a headfake. Do you have any idea how much sapphire that Mesa plant is producing. If it was just for Touch ID, it would be a tenth the size it is.
This whole article is a headfake. Do you have any idea how much sapphire that Mesa plant is producing. If it was just for Touch ID, it would be a tenth the size it is.
You're suggesting current capacity is a 'touch' too much " src="http://forums-files.appleinsider.com/images/smilies//lol.gif" />
Comments
Sapphire might not show up on the iPhone 6 but you cannot use Liquidmetal as a cautionary tale for a number of reasons:
1. Liquidmetal is not ready for mass production. The creator of Liquidmetal himself stated as much. It will take a couple of years for that to happen. Sapphire IS ready for mass production. The Arizona plant is cranking them out as we speak.
2. Apple entered a 20 millions contract with Liquidmetal. But the contract with GTAT is 578 millions. It shows how serious Apple is at ramping the production up by the end of 2014. You don't throw out that amount of money for just enough sapphire crystal to cover a watch's face.
3. The CEO of GTAT said this is their transformative year and predicts a 100% increase in revenue in 2014...most of that coming at the end of the year during their quarterly earning conference call. You don't make that kind of announcement if something big isn't happening. And he reiterated in the last telecon that they are on track.
4. The amount of equipments in the plant can produce way more than what is needed to cover watch faces.
By the way Liquidmetal has already granted Apple the right to use this metal in ALL commercial electronic products in perpetuity. The renewal of the contract is to allow Apple to use any new patent related to this metal alloy that might come out from their research together from now until the end of the new contract. LQMT will not earn a penny from any product that Apple produces using this metal. They do that in exchange for Apple's help at researching how to mass produce this product. So that they can offer it to other clients in fields other than commercial electronic products.
Thanks for the info about LM. But how can you be sure about the sapphire yields being too important for the watch only?
This whole article is a headfake. Do you have any idea how much sapphire that Mesa plant is producing. If it was just for Touch ID, it would be a tenth the size it is.
You're suggesting current capacity is a 'touch' too much
" src="http://forums-files.appleinsider.com/images/smilies//lol.gif" />
How dare you sir, I spit in your general direction, aaaahhh wind.