Ceramic Shield

Ceramic Shield is a marketing name for a material developed by Corning in collaboration with Apple Inc. It was announced in October 2020 as the surface material of the iPhone 12 series and is believed to have been developed in response to  used by high-end Samsung phones.

History
After Apple's late CEO Steve Jobs announced the original iPhone in January 2007, he complained to VP of operations Jeff Williams about the scratches that had already developed on the plastic screen of the prototype and said, "We need glass." Two days later, Corning CEO contacted Williams to tell him: "Hey, your boss called and said my glass sucks." Apple and Corning then scrambled to develop a manufacturing process for a new type of that Corning had been researching. By late June, the iPhones began shipping with the glass screens which later became known as.

With entry-level Apple Watch Sport models released in April 2015, Apple used -reinforced Ion-X glass, which is lighter, cheaper, and less scratch resistant than sapphire, but more flexible and resistant to breakage.

According to Corning, Ceramic Shield consists of colorless ceramic nano crystals embedded in the glass matrix. It is used on iPhone 12 models introduced in October 2020 and is advertised to have 4 times improved drop performance over previous screens. It is believed to be stronger than, which is reinforced with.