By TIME Staff
The Apple rumor mill is buzzing about the prospect of a sapphire crystal display in the next iPhone, to be announced on Sept. 9. But what exactly is a sapphire display? And why would you want it?
According to GT advanced technologies, an Apple-backed sapphire manufacturing company, the crystal is a synthetic sapphire material. The material is used in LEDs, airplane windows, certain iPhone camera lenses and fingerprint readers.
The benefit of having a sapphire crystal display is that it would be much harder to break, making it much less likely that you’ll have to deal with a cracked iPhone screen every time you drop your phone.
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