Apple has released a new iPhone 12 ad touting the strong qualities of its Ceramic Shield smartphone glass. The video shows a woman walking down the street them fumbling and dropping her iPhone 12, only to be saved by Ceramic Shield.
“Relax, it’s an iPhone,” says Apple. Yes, until you need to pay for a screen repair on a hard drop.
Ceramic Shield has “four times better drop performance,” says Apple’s marketing and is “clearly tougher than any smartphone glass.” In iPhone 12 drop tests, we have seen the smartphone’s glass survive many drops, so there is some truth to Apple’s claims.
“Enter Ceramic Shield. It’s made by introducing nano-ceramic crystals — which are actually harder than most metals — into glass. Sounds simple, but it’s incredibly difficult because most ceramics aren’t transparent. By controlling the type of crystals and degree of crystallinity, we developed an exclusive formula that maximizes the toughness of the ceramic while remaining optically clear,” explains Apple’s website.
Apple says Ceramic Shield also is scratch-resistant as well, but we’ve seen some hairline scratches on our iPhone 12 Pro Max during its first couple of days, so we’re a bit skeptical about that.
