Aluminum-attacking chemical poured over iPhone 6 is Jony Ive’s worst nightmare

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Yep, this is pretty much a horror movie for any Apple designer.
Yep, this is pretty much a horror movie for any Apple designer.
Photo: TechRax/YouTube

Next to his favorite Bentley getting into a scrape, there can be few things which sound more likely to give Jony Ive nightmares than a chemical element capable of causing the catastrophic structural failure of aluminum.

Unfortunately for Jony, that chemical — referred to as gallium — not only exists, but has somehow gotten into the hands of oddball YouTube stress tester TechRax. All in the name of clicks science, TechRax has previously established himself as enemy number one to Apple’s Industrial Design team — doing everything from assaulting new iPhones with DeWalt angle grinders to crushing an Apple Watch Edition between two magnets.

Check out the video below to see how the aluminum iPhone 6 manages against its toughest challenge yet.

And here’s another pretty cool video I found while research gallium, showing how it can affect the structural integrity of even a solid sheet of aluminum.

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