Because I'm an Apple shareholder. ;)

Yes. And both my phone and my iPad have lots of evidence of being dropped on their sides and corners. They're really quite resistant to it. It's tough to design scratch resistance into something that has to have a big, flat screen though.

Sure it does. The rubber doesn't have to be exposed. IIRC the 3 and 3G did have a rubber buffer between the case and the class. The metal antenna/bezel on the 4 and 4s wee an okay shock absorber but the glass stuck out too far on either side. On the 5 and 5s the glass is lower profile and more protected.

I got a scratch on my phone the first day I had it. Then I dropped it (quite a few times, the last time cracked the glass when it fell face down on gravel) and got it replaced under warranty. So I guess my experience has been even. A quick survey shows a few scratches and a few smashed screens on the phones near me - it looks pretty even. But the smashed screens are much more noticeable, of course.

Apple has used gorilla glass to this point. They're investing in sapphire, presumably to make screen covers with. They're not stupid. Presumably they know something.

Ah, are you one of the crappy scientists? People in my lab make their hypotheses before they test them. Perhaps because I won't help them process or analyze the data without one. Good scientists through history have done the same.

Cynicism is very hip these days though. Congratulations.

I was kidding. But I'm happy your phone still worked.

Whenever someone says "obvious truth", they're almost certainly not talking about science. Particularly if it's in relation to something very complicated and notoriously difficult to measure.

The problem is that people aren't questioning "authority" in the form of celebrities with no qualifications at all, and are unreasonably questioning authority, in the form of people who have spent decades training and studying the things they're talking about.

By unreasonably questioning I don't mean skepticism, I mean unshakeable disbelief.

Unfortunately, you made up that dichotomy.

The scientific method can never prove anything is true. In science, there really isn't any concept of "true." Cigarettes cause cancer. Do they? It's a good theory. It works very well. It has a good amount of predictive power, good mechanistic support, lots of data supporting it. But it could be false.

Manmade global warming is a good theory. It looks like it works pretty well. It has some predictive power, although we're still testing that. There's good mechanistic support. Quite a bit of data. It could be false though.

There's none of this historical science / "because X and Y are true, it makes sense that Z is true" / etc. crap.

"the effect is obviously going to be amplified."

Ah, obviously. Never mind that most of the things you wrote aren't based on any evidence, and several are very well refuted by actual evidence.

Hypotheses are made by men to test a theory. Evidence is gathered for that purpose. Hypotheses are never generated to fit the evidence.

Actually, I believe the number of young earth creationists in the US is somewhat smaller than the number of Americans being treated for mental illness. Both numbers are unacceptably high, of course.

Congratulations, you've written an electric universe post that contains even more ridiculous claims than the electric universe people have.

That's because the other phones don't continue to function after their screens get broken. :P

I've actually broken a couple of iPhone screens. They seem to survive the corner and edge drops just fine, but the face down drops onto concrete or an uneven stone floor breaks the screen. Still works fine though, which is impressive.

Really? You got modded up for that?

Expensive watches have sapphire faces because sapphire is one of the hardest materials that can be made into a thin, transparent sheet for a reasonable price. That makes it very scratch resistant. It's not bling, it's very practical.

Sapphire is almost certainly more scratch resistant, because it's harder. Gorilla glass may well be less likely to break, since it's not as hard. Scratch and break resistance are usually difficult to get together. You're right, the real question is, in the real world, which is the more important property? Are scratches or breaks more common? Can other design features mitigate scratches or breaks more effectively?

I would think some rubber buffer around the glass could be used to add a lot of break resistance. Other than putting a film over the screen, scratches are pretty hard to prevent without making the surface itself more resistant.