iPhone 6 Might Miss Out on its Date With Sapphire Displays Owning to Low Yield

As per a new leak concerning the upcoming iPhone 6, Apple may not have enough stocks of the sapphire glass display to stamp it on every iPhone 6 that comes out of its gates this fall.

Or another option for Apple will be to keep the sapphire glass panel exclusive to a particular iPhone 6 version instead of making it standard fitment across all its models. Towards that, it's the top of the line 5.5 inch 128 GB iPhone 6 version that is considered to be the front runner for being the sole recipient of sapphire glass panels.

The revelation comes from a new note from JP Morgan to investors, a copy of which is also with the Taipei Times.

"Due to various challenges related to the new cover material, we believe the production output for sapphire covers will be low," said JPMorgan analysts. "Sapphire ingot yield rates could be as low as below 50 percent for this size, and finished sapphire smartphone covers may cost as much as US$40 to US$45 versus below US$10 for finished Gorilla glass."

JP Morgan further stated Apple may eventually have 10 million sapphire crystal displays in all to be used in its forthcoming iPhone range. On an optimistic note, the financial services firm has stated sapphire displays will be more commonplace next year onwards.

The high production costs associated with sapphire displays is another reason that is believed to have forced Apple to keep corning gorilla glasses in contention for the iPhone 6, reports BGR. The JP Morgan analysts further stated that the rumored Apple iWatch too may miss out on its date with the sapphire displays due to low yield rates and high costs involved with these.

The sapphire displays apparently meant for iPhone 6 had made a lot of noise recently on the back of a few torture test videos of the panels that arrive online.

Also, thanks to the videos, the sapphire panels also created an aura around itself of being completely scratch proof and superior strength. However, not all OEMs are too enthusiastic with the sapphire displays claiming these might be tough and scratch proof but can be brittle compared to glass based displays.