HN Theater @HNTheaterMonth

This "leak" was pretty convincing when i saw it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5R0_FJ4r73s

Is there some trickery, or is gorilla glass as tough as nails like this now?

⬐ hocuspocus

Actually this video was a pretty good proof that the screen is indeed made of glass. Too bad none of the tech news website who relayed that rumor bothered asking a materials engineer (or anyone who knows the first thing about sapphire). Or even used common sense for that matter (if it bends like glass and get scratched like glass, chances are it's not sapphire).

⬐ deft

Up until seeing this HN thread I thought that leak was true and that iPhone6 had some mazing new screen glass tech. I was impressed by it. Still impressive I suppose, but now it definitely seems more like a "trick"

⬐ spike021

For what it's worth, I've had two iPhones now, both with gorilla glass, over the last 3 years. I've dropped both, accidentally leaned on them a couple times, and accidentally shoved them into the same pocket with keys. No scratches. Just lots of smudges and oiliness after the oleophobic coating wears off.

⬐ peteretep

Really? My iPhone 5 is covered in tiny scratches, and I feel like I've made a real effort to keep it away from keys and change. No major structural damage, just lots of little scratches.

⬐ gnur

Pocket sand, putting your phone face down on any surface where sand might have been is enough for scratches.

It's all about hardness [1], ordinary iron / metal is quite soft (4 - 5) scale on mohs scale, while gorilla glass is at least a 7. It has nothing to do with how "sharp" an object is, paper will never scratch steel and regular keys will never scratch glass. Someone on XDA [2] made quite a passionate case about this.

[1]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mohs_scale_of_mineral_hardness

[2] http://forum.xda-developers.com/galaxy-s2/general/misconcept...

⬐ spike021

Yeah, it surprises me too. But no scratches anywhere and I'm pretty particular about making sure my phone is doing ok.

⬐ arrrg

In my experience keys and change don’t matter. The metal is too soft to scratch phone screens. (Besides being soft, keys and change also tends to not have much in the way of really sharp edges. Maybe new keys do, but don’t they get quite smooth over time? The aluminium case is potentially a different story.)

What matters is sand. (For what it’s worth my iPhone has three, four scratches after a year. I’m pretty certain they are all from when I slid my phone around on some surface with a grain of sand between surface and phone – which I usually try to avoid, but oh well. That’s it.)

⬐ zenojevski

Isn't that the type of damage that sapphire is supposedly very good against?

⬐ arrrg

Yep, I think so.

To be honest, though, for me personally scratches don’t matter. In normal usage they are invisible and while they do annoy me I would rather the phone be more resistant to falling down.

⬐ ZeroGravitas

Smartphone glass always has been that flexible and strong, Corning have had various videos demonstrating that online for a while.

His follow up video was only a few days later, after people pointed this out to him, and fairly convincingly showed that this was just a newer generation of glass.

⬐ mhandley

That follow-up video is here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b7ANcWQEUI8 Pretty interesting (and painful) watching the effects of sandpaper on screens.

⬐ goldenkey

Is it just me or did the video look sharper through the sapphire?

⬐ Choronzon

Way too bendy to be actual sapphire crystal.Unless its some sort of a composite.