> Chemically strengthened to be 20 times stiffer and 30 times harder than plastic, the glass is ultradurable.
... though the battery is still non-removable, so the ultradurability of the glass is really a moot point.
... though the battery is still non-removable, so the ultradurability of the glass is really a moot point.
And I don't understand certain folks' obsession with changeable batteries. You need to have those stupid opening compartment for batteries which always breaks down. I also remember that when my Blackberry used to hang, I would have no choice but to remove the batteries so that I can reset it. The on/off switch has always worked if my iPhone gets stuck up. Says a lot about how solid iOS is.
What? Why do you think I think that?
The iPhone 3G was the most durable phone that I ever owned. I could drop it during a phone call (happened once) and picked the thing up a second later to continue talking. You lose a great deal of 1) internal space and 2) structural integrity when you make the battery removable. Having a non-removable battery means that you can skip implementing all the rails and pieces to hold the door on, the frame to hold the battery, etc... gives you a bigger battery overall and more room for other goodies, and/or a smaller phone overall.
Their statement implies that with this glass the phone is going to stay usable longer than its existing revision. However Jobs himself said that the battery in the current iPhone is non-removable, because he expects everyone to upgrade before it reaches the end of its life.
Just read what Apple says - "and more scratch resistant than ever" - meaning that this glass is meant to protect against casual scratches, and not against the glass breakage during accidental drops.
The point being that the time it takes to scratch the heck out of 3GS glass is more than a lifetime of its battery. I've been carrying my iPhone in the same pocket with keys, coins and god knows what else for several months now and it still has NO scratches. Hence the original comment - the lack of ultradurable glass is not exactly a problem with existing generation of the iPhone.
The durability of the glass is surely to prevent breakage when you sit on your phone or drop it from a reasonable distance, no?