I do not expect any announcement for significant use of bulk metallic glasses (a.k.a. Liquidmetal alloys) in iPhone 5, 5C, 5S , or whatever combinations of letters with numbers 4 and 5. Not tomorrow, not this year.
I am also resetting my estimated timeline for the implementation of Liquidmetal alloys into iPhone by mid 2015 at the earliest (unlikely) and possibly in 2016, except for limited-production cases (e.g. Vertu and Ubuntu Edge) or small components, e.g. SIM card ejector pin.
My reading between the lines (and tea leaves) is that Apple is stumbling on developing this material technology into mass-production consumer electronics; whatever the issues are.
Although the losing momentum of rumors appears to agree with me, LQMT stock is indecisive on whether the next iPhone will have Liquidmetal alloys or not.
More details on this in a future post.
I agree with your read on Apple’s timeline for employing liquidmetal alloys as you so stipulated.
I also agree on your assessment of a hastily drafted patent which essentially mimicks the Pilkington Glass patents. I also believe that this “technique” has been attempted before in history and was a dismal failure.
How can one draw a sheet of liquidmetal alloy onto a bed of molten tin and simultaneously solve the oxidation and impurity contamination while trying to keep the liquidmetal alloy from intermingling with the hot tin?
Silicon glass on hot tin is one thing; but metallic glass on hot tin? Who was the genius who dreamed that up?