“New iPhones didn’t get a sapphire screen due to production problems”

Apple’s iPhone 6 and 6 Plus should have had a sapphire screen. That reports The Wall Street Journal. Production problems at the now bankrupt manufacturer GT Advanced Tech would have thrown a spanner in the works.

Apple would have received only 10 percent of the promised sapphire from the manufacturer, The Wall Street Journal writes based on an internal document. Half of the sapphire blocks produced by GT Advanced Tech, now bankrupt, are said to have been defective.

This summer, Apple was rumored to be using sapphire for the screens of a new iPhone. The fingerprint reader and camera of the iPhone were already coated with sapphire, which is very strong and virtually unscratched. Eventually, the more expensive variants of the Apple Watch also got access to synthetic sapphire screens.

GT Advanced Tech promised Apple larger blocks of synthetic sapphire, weighing more than 260 kilos, more than twice as much as had been produced until then. Apple then loaned the company $ 493 million, converted 393 million euros, to set up a factory. In addition, Apple bought a factory for $500 million, which it would rent to the company for $100 a year.

However, there were serious problems with the production, so GT Advanced Tech ended up spending 900 million dollars – converted 717 million euros. There were also significant problems with management: for example, too many employees were hired for the number of ovens available, leaving many employees with nothing to do. The company filed for bankruptcy in early October.

Errors with sapphire production, from a document from Apple