Following on from the use of ceramic materials in the premium Apple Watch Series 2 and the discovery of a number of design patents using the material, there has been an air of anticipation in the geekerati that the presumptively titled iPhone 8 will be built out of ceramic. Not so fast, fabrication fans!
Product designer Greg Koenig has poured oil over that frenzied water. The key arguments are manufacturing process and logistics, but the conclusion is that he thinks the iPhone 8 will ship with a material that is a bit more familiar.
Koenig’s starting points are the marketing materials for the ceramic Apple Watch that detail the manufacturing process, and the knowledge that Apple works with huge volumes of aluminum and ships around one million iPhones per day.
It has taken time to build up the experience (and the machinery) to accommodate the current production line. Moving to ceramics would mean starting again from scratch. Machinery would need to be manufactured, acquired, and installed; the volume of ceramic parts produced would need to be running at new iPhone levels of demand; and the floor space required would not be easily hidden in the supply chain. Koenig writes:
In fact, if we scale the numbers used in the booklet up to iPhone size devices and cycle times, Apple would need 2 football field's worth of kiln space for each ceramic iPhone to sinter for the requisite 36 hours. For the 2 hours of hard ceramic machining to finish the case details, Apple would need to go from 20,000 CNC machines, to 250,000. They would need another 200,000 employees to perform the 2 hours of hand polishing to "bring out the strength and luster."
It’s hard to disagree with Koenig. Apple releasing a ceramic iPhone in a little under eleven months time is unrealistic.
All of this is not to say that there will never be a ceramic-focused iPhone in the future, but the requirements to do so at the scale required for the full run of the iPhone 8 appear beyond even Apple. A shorter run might be possible and the idea of a ‘premium’ iPhone with exotic materials and ludicrous specifications such as a terabyte of memory and extra RAM paired up with design touches such as sapphire crystal for the OLED display, may have a certain appeal in some quarters.
Even though the Apple Watch failed to capture the luxury end of the market with versions costing upwards of $10,000, there’s always a demand for blinged out smartphones. Apple could tap that and ceramics could be a way for a very limited edition to stand out.
But for the vast majority of people looking at the iPhone 8, it’s looking more likely that Apple will use a form of toughened glass. Still, it’s going to be curved at both the front and rear of the iPhone. It might feel like the same surface on the iPhone 7, but the shape and tactile sensations, they going to be all-new. And I’d rather my smartphone designers get the feel right than shoot for a buzzword-worthy material.
Now read about the vital feature Apple is hiding in the iPhone 8 design...
