The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office has bring out Apple with a patent that finally suggests how the party may have planned ( or be planning ) to useLiquidMetal : in conjunction with display drinking glass made from azure to mold a single , integrated physical body for the iPhone .
The patent is actually over six years old , but has just been granted — a mere week after Appleextended its single contractto use LiquidMetal in consumer electronics through to 2015 . So far , the company has only used its rights to the cloth to make a SIM card ouster tool — but this letters patent suggests its use could be rather more sophisticated .
“ Methods and system for integrally trapping a trash cut-in in a metal bezel”—or U.S. PatentNo . 8,738,104to its buddies that insist on snappier appointment systems — describe how it could be potential to incorporate crank , such as sapphire , into a metal telephone set bezel using LiquidMetal to bridge the col .
While that might vocalize like a formula for calamity — a human beings of written off phones and lack of repairability — the abstract thought behind it is actually pretty sound . Currently , Apple expend a rubberized gasket between glass and metallic element skeletal frame of its phones to damp the scheme in the event of a tumble . It works well enough , and is still used in the iPhone 5S — but the beauty of using LiquidMetal is that the metal itself has many of the positive attribute of plastic while being problematic and hard - wearing .
The patent in fact draw how LiquidMetal could be used to put up many of the same muffle qualities as the current rubber gasket , while also providing an integrated metal - and - methamphetamine hydrochloride chassis . What ’s more , it also explains how the thermic properties of the alloy are well suited to the metal injection molding proficiency that would be required to attempt such a fabrication feat .
Of course , it ’s not clear if Apple plan to undulate out an iPhone that really uses such big quantities of LiquidMetal — but the timing in relation to Apple ’s renewal of its LiquidMetal contract , and the fact that the patent predates the original sales agreement of the rights , hints that the spirit is certainly there .
Either way , a near - future release seems unlikely — not least because we have n’t take heed of any rumor of mass LiquidMetal production , which would be ask for it to seem in every newfangled iPhone . irrespective , it ’s interesting to see Apple thinking about how it can utilise raw materials in consumer devices — we’ll just have to look and see if the results ever make it into our hands . [ USPTOviaApple Insider ]
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