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Anecdotally, I also heard today that synthetic sapphire/ruby gems have become difficult for jewelers to source. Maybe someone (Apple?) is already soaking up higher purity raw materials for sapphire production.

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It's always difficult, especially for smaller jewelers in the US. We were lucky for several years with sapphire production, allowing us to have sapphire crystals and display backs in watches for very low prices. Pivots have started to move up in price, enough that it's almost worthwhile to do your own bushing (which is fun anyway).

Now you're seeing "mineral glass" back on the upswing in lower priced watches.

Leica started using sapphire for the cover on its displays on the M9p and M8.2 cameras a few years ago, so I'm sure that general industrial consumption has increased among manufacturers producing long-lived products with LCD displays in dusty/sandy/etc. environments.

the second i saw the article title my first thought was watches as sapphire is used for both for the crystal and the pivots.

The raw material is just aluminum oxide. I would guess someone repurposed their production or is having problems with their production.

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