Photo source: Macrumors
Recently, trending headlines around the world reported an Alaska Airline Boeing 737-9 MAX facing an emergency where one of its doors blew open mid-air. The following wave of conversation, however, was that an iPhone was surprisingly recovered, having survived a knee-jerking drop from a vertical height of five kilometers (16,000 feet) mid-air from the passing Alaskan Airline plane. The iPhone, which belonged to a passenger on the flight, was found on the side of the road still functioning intact, open for baggage claim at Alaska Airlines.
Photo Source: Lifewire.com
How is this possible, when a little over 10 years ago, glass encased phones were introduced, they would barely survive being dropped from waist length? Like many other iterations of specially designed tempered glass used for smartphones, Apple uses their proprietary customised glass for their iPhones, made by Corning Gorilla in the US.
Photo Source: Corning
If you have been shopping for the next smartphone, you may have noticed in the spec sheet that every smartphone brand advertises the glass used in their latest models. The most common ones are Corning Gorilla Glass, who supplies hardened glass to most smartphone manufacturers today.
The first generation of Gorilla Glass used on a smartphone in fact, had been on the first-generation iPhone since June 2007. In 2010, the use of glass was adopted in approximately 20% of mobile handsets worldwide, about 200 million units. Today, almost every smartphone brand is using glass both on their screens and back panels.
Photo Source: The Verge
Across every iteration, the Corning series of scratch-resistant glass made for our handheld devices has made massive improvements since the its introduction in 2007. While the average consumer may not notice the margins of incremental improvements year on year, compared to how durable and scratch-resistant all glass smartphones are today compared to 10 or 5 years ago, the smartphones of today are leaps and bounds ahead of its predecessors.
Photo source: Gizchina.com
Corning’s proprietary fusion manufacturing process is at the core of its leadership in glass technology and the cover glass industry. This extraordinarily precise, highly automated process produces a thin sheet cover glass with pristine surface quality essential for cover glass for consumer applications.
While various brands use flagship cover glass from Corning, some brands use tailor-made options from as well. Apple, for example uses a variation of Corning Gorilla Glass known as Ceramic Shield, which boast superior resistance. Others use the latest and greatest offering from Corning, the Corning Gorilla Glass Victus.
Photo Source: Mobile.co.uk
Among other brands, there are also proprietary in-house alternatives which meets the highest standards, like Xiaomi’s Longjing Glass (Dragon Crystal Glass), Huawei’s Kunlun Glass, or Dragon Trail Glass.
Following fundamental properties of material hardness, hardened glass is highly resistant to scratches by materials lower on the scale of hardness, though they still are brittle and shatter from hard drops. The harder it is, the easier it shatters and inversely, the more malleable and flexible the material is, the easier it scratches. Industrial glass manufacturers have been trying for decades to crack the code and find the coup de ’grace between impact-durability and scratch-resistance, and while its either one of the other at this point in time, we are coming pretty close.
Most smartphones these days are scratch resistant against most materials lower on the Mohs Hardness Scale. What is that, you might ask? The Mohs Hardness Scale, in brief, is used as a convenient way to help identify minerals. A mineral’s hardness is a measure of its relative resistance to scratching, measured by scratching the mineral against another substance of known hardness on the Mohs Hardness Scale.
Photo Source: Cybershack
In general, our smartphones are rated to be between 5 and 6 on the scale. On its own, they are resistant against many things such as scratches from fingernails, plastic, certain types of glass and in some cases, even steel.
Modern smartphones are extremely resistant against scratches by most foreign materials, so don’t worry about some coins, stationery, microplastics, wooden splinters, lint or even pocket knives scratching up your device. Moreover, ionised cover glass is also quite durable against impact from some reasonable drops or knocks.
But like all things made of glass, they are not invincible. One way or another, an impact strong enough will still cause shatters and chips, leading to a series of costly repairs, or in some cases, device replacements.
Instead of replacing an entire device, most users will opt for a simple screen replacement, but using genuine parts and replacements is also crucial. Any alternatives not certified to be made by the original manufacturer of the cover glass, will inevitably carry the risk of lower quality in durability and resistance.
That said, it is always safer and better to have some extra protection on your smartphones like tempered glass screen protectors and cases for some peace of mind. Obviously, don’t go dropping them from planes mid-air.
What to Do If Your Glass screen is cracked or damaged?
In the unfortunate event that your smartphone cover glass becomes damaged despite all preventive measures, you are advised against opening the device or removing parts on your own without proper guidelines and instructions.
As always, we recommend seeking professional assistance for more severe cases, and obtaining professional opinions on how to best restore a damaged device!
If the warranty has expired, consider seeking professional repair services. Authorised service centers, such as Secondlifeasia or reputable third-party repair shops. Visit Apple Independent Repair Provider, Secondlifeasia, to find out more about the costs for liquid damage for your Apple devices.
We have more articles to breakdown smartphone technology for the daily reader, including tips to safeguard your devices and diverse types of damage risks for smart devices. If you want to read more about the maintenance of smartphone screens/displays (click here) or smartphone batteries (click here), check out our other stories!