Since the first iPhone was released in 2007, rumors have swirled that Apple is entertaining the idea and technology behind creating a liquid metal-based future generation iPhone.
Although we have no way to confirm or deny the company’s purported exploration of that possibility, it finally appears that the liquid metal iPhone won’t become a reality at least in the near future.
Dr. Atakan Peker, the so-called inventor of Liquidmetal, says the technology behind a liquid metal iPhone isn’t ripe enough to be a viable and cost-effective material alternative for iPhone design and construction.
“This is a technology that has yet to be matured and perfected both in manufacturing process and application development,” Peker tells Business Insider. “I should note that this is a completely new and different metal technology.”
“Liquidmetal is super strong, scratch and corrosion resistant, resilient and can be precision cast into complex shapes,” he adds.”Plastics are low cost to manufacture into complex shapes but not strong enough. Metals are strong but difficult to produce into complex shapes. And glass feels and looks beautiful but is highly fragile. Liquidmetal can combine these advantages and remedy some of these shortcomings.”
Regardless of Dr. Peker’s doubts, Apple still holds a license on the liquid metal technology he helped to pioneer. And, at the end of the day, it’s ultimately up to Apple whether or not the company spends, as Peker asserts, hundreds of millions over the next three years simply to prep their facilities to make a liquid metal iPhone.
So, yeah… don’t count on it.
