iPhone4 - cheap materials confirmed

      "Well, this is not encouraging. The photo you're seeing above is our leader Joshua's iPhone 4 review unit, snapped by Ryan Block just moments ago. Ryan pointed out that there are some nasty scratches on the back of the phone. While we don't have any better photos of it at the moment, Josh told us that they're hard to see unless in bright light, but they look pretty notable to us for a five day-old unit made of Gorilla Glass. We'll get some better photos for you as soon as humanly possible."

Here’s how the material was described by Apple’s Jony Ive:

"We’ve also developed a custom glass that’s comparable in strength to sapphire crystal, but about 30 times harder than plastic. This glass is not only used on the front of the phone but also on the back."

      Custom glass or gorilla glass, who's to know? I thought to give Steve a call and ask, but I'm afraid he might have said diamond. Of course there was a clue about all this in Apple's advert, an over-bending "glass" screen (see pic) - while this is not impossible, the angles presented really give away something that is more plastic than glass. As far as I know glass scratches really hard and plastic doesn't crack. Well It appears apple managed to engineer the best material out of both: one that scratches like plastic and cracks like glass.
     It wouldn't be a surprise if the super strength steel frame were in fact simple aluminum that bends like paper and that the magical antenna properties are the actual cause for the dropped calls the folks at Engadget have experienced - you know, they insulate antennas for a reason.

      There's not really much more to say, we are used with scratched and cracked plastic from the previous iPhones and it's looks like the Custom Apple Plastic "Glass" is here to stay.

Source: Engadget