Why doesn’t the iPhone 6 have sapphire glass?

Sapphire glass was one thing to rumour mill just couldn’t decide on, would it be included or would it be scrapped? There were rumours of troubled production, issue with the raw materials, and when the announcement came around we heard… nothing. Not quite nothing, since the Apple Watch will include a sapphire glass display, but nothing about the iPhone 6.

It turns out those rumours about troubled production were partly accurate, it just wasn’t possible to get enough sapphire glass to meet the demand for the iPhone 6. The problem arose just weeks ago, when GT advanced Technologies, Apple’s sapphire glass manufacturer, ran into a problem creating the edges of the display. These issues meant that the amount of sapphire glass displays that were ready was 25% less than expected, and that just wan’t going to cut it.

The produced sapphire glass is reported to have been converted to Apple Watch displays, and given the fact that they won’t lunch until early next year there is plenty of time for them to fix the problem. It has yet to be seen if Apple will one day include sapphire glass on an iPhone, but one thing’s for sure, it won’t be on an iPhone 6.

That’s rather disappointing, especially given how fragile and important phone screens are these days, but hopefully the rest of us will be able to get out hands on super-strong scratch-resistant phone displays in the future.

Want to read more? Here’s our coverage of the recent Apple announcements, including everything you need to know about Apple’s ‘phablet’, the iPhone 6 Plus, and smartwatches buying guide, or if you’re sick of Apple completely, here’s our rundown of our 14 favourite dating apps, from Tinder to eHarmony.