This is really incredible. To summarize for people who don't have access:<p>1) GT was a solar furnace maker that first offered to sell Apple 2300 furnaces so that Apple could produce sapphire screens for the iPhone 6.<p>2) Then Apple decided to lend GT $500 million and have GT own the furnaces and produce the sapphire (although it had no experience in producing high quality, production volume sapphire) for Apple.<p>3) GT became a captive supplier to Apple and had exclusivity
arrangements - so it couldn't diversify its business.<p>4) GT hit production problems with almost 50 percent of the boules of sapphire being cracked and unusable.<p>5) GT had operational issues, where people were paid to just sweep the floor over and over.<p>6) GT eventually filed for Chapter 11 - surprising Apple.<p>7) The iphone 6 didn't have sapphire screens.
Similar/realted (from what I can tell) stories:<p><a href="http://www.theregister.co.uk/2014/10/10/shattered_apples_jilted_glass_supplier_to_shut_down_sapphire_ops/" rel="nofollow">http://www.theregister.co.uk/2014/10/10/shattered_apples_jil...</a> (interesting info on Sniper weapons pod use of sapphire in comments).<p><a href="http://www.macrumors.com/2014/11/19/gt-advanced-sapphire-failures/" rel="nofollow">http://www.macrumors.com/2014/11/19/gt-advanced-sapphire-fai...</a> (references the WSJ article)<p><a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/11/19/us-gtadvanced-bankruptcy-apple-idUSKCN0J31W620141119" rel="nofollow">http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/11/19/us-gtadvanced-bank...</a>
For those too lazy to do a google search on the article, this link should get you there: <a href="http://www.google.co.jp/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=1&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0CCAQqQIwAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fonline.wsj.com%2Farticles%2Finside-apples-broken-sapphire-factory-1416436043&ei=IqFtVKFYpbWbBbLjggg&usg=AFQjCNElAvxoY2E0YPeMlrK2HKSkwjcqhw&sig2=Is9YxV4Ymx13mwqXSbbRXA&bvm=bv.80185997,d.dGY" rel="nofollow">http://www.google.co.jp/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&...</a>
I assume this article is Apple telling their version of what happened. Honestly, though, it's kinda what I expected—GT agreed to produce iPhone screens for Apple, which they were unable to do effectively enough.
Typically, news sites with a paywall (e.g. WSJ) will give you access if the referrer is from Google. I simply google the headline and follow the link back to the story and am granted access.<p>Always works for me.