Willow Glass by Corning won’t be available until 2016

By Darshik Jariwala - March, 1st 2013

Corning Glass has just announced that the much praised “Willow Glass” which they had shown last year, wouldn’t be available for consumers at least until 2016. Corning’s Willow Glass features a bendable technology that can be wrapped around, which allows it to be used in devices like wrist-watches.

What is means for Apple SmartWatch

The year began with the rumors of apple testing the much-awaited smartwatch. But they never confirmed or denied the news. Later, we came to know that they filed a patent for a flexible smartwatch which strengthened the rumors.

Read: Apple reportedly finally testing its much rumoured iWatch?

Corning’s statement ends all the discussions and debates about the smartwatch’s release date.  So I believe there is no urgent need for us to save money for buying a product which isn’t due until 2016.

What Corning Says

James Chaplin, President of Corning Glass Technologies said, “People are not accustomed to glass you roll up. The ability of people to take it and use it to make a product is limited.” in an interview in Beijing. Chaplin said, for now the willow glass will only be used in “Simple” products, like solar panels or as a thin film behind some touch panels.

About Corning’s Gorilla Glass, Chaplin says, “We sell a lot of Gorilla Glass in cell phones, but a notebook is 10 times the size, 10 times the area, Glassmakers sell in square feet. We like area — the bigger the area, the better.” We will see that in the upcoming notebooks which will be touchscreens.

According to Corning, Gorilla Glass which was introduced in 2007 is currently used in more than 1 billion devices worldwide. More than 33 Electronics makers use it in more than 900 models. Another interesting fact, Corning’s website suggests that they “helped a young inventor named Thomas Edison make his electric light a commercial success by producing the first glass light bulbs in 1879.”

Corning had also released a video in 2011 named, “A day made of glass” which offered us look at Corning’s vision of how they plan to re-shape our future with their Glass technology. The response it garnered was quite positive and company released a sequel to the same video named,” A day made of glass – 2”, a longer version which explained how the technology works and how soon it can be available for us.

So it appears that, Google Glass will be the only talked about wearable device launching this year, if Google execs are to be believed.

Also Read: Google Glasses: Everything you need to know

Source: Bloomberg

Photo Credit – Doug Kline/Flickr