99.99% Pure Sapphire
Our story begins with the iPhone 6. That was the model that Apple hoped to create with pure sapphire touchscreens.
Apple had been using sapphire for years already — but for camera lenses and fingerprint sensors. Never for a surface so large.
Cutting sapphire crystal into dimensions large enough to cover an entire iPhone screen was an enormous engineering challenge, but the goal was worth it — an iPhone screen that was nearly impossible to scratch.
After all, sapphire is one of the hardest gemstones to scratch on the planet. Diamonds are one of the few minerals that are even harder, but diamond touchscreens can be a little expensive — even for Apple.
And so growing and cutting synthetic sapphire seemed like the perfect option. Not only is sapphire hard to leave a scratch on, but it's far denser than glass and dissipates heat much faster. The result is that sapphire feels cool and smooth to the touch — something that matters when you touch your phone as often as most of us do.
To make a long story short, Apple's designated supplier wasn't able to surmount all of the obstacles needed to engineer sapphire at scale.
And a little later, we were able to purchase the very same furnaces that once were meant to create iPhone screens.
More importantly, we were just crazy enough to pick up where our predecessors left off.
It wasn't easy, but thanks to some talented engineers — as well as perseverance and a little old fashioned luck — we're finally able to bring you the Sapphire X and other products you see on our site today.
It only took us about 5 years to figure out.
But what's a little time when you have the honor of being inspired by one of the toughest, most beautiful gemstones on the planet? To pair that honor with our deep love for all things iPhone just made the many unique challenges we faced all the more worth it.
Today, we're proud to bring you full 99.99% pure synthetic sapphire, and hope you enjoy the beauty and strength of these special crystals as much as we enjoy sharing them with you.
