Why on Earth would you make a phone out of Titanium? I mean, yes, hard, shiny, expensive... but just seems so wasteful.
As far as wasteful - sort of. Titanium metal isn’t particularly rare, it’s just bound up in ore that takes an extremely energy intensive process to convert to usable material. That’s the Kroll method, invented 80 years ago to refine titanium. There’s actually a new process called the Armstrong method which is way simpler and less capital and energy intensive. In a very real sense, Apple investing in titanium is exactly what we need to push down the cost of refining and fabricating with the metal.
Aluminum used to be more precious than gold, and then 150 years ago scientists figured out how to cheaply refine aluminum. Now we use aluminum for everything from cheap bottle openers and bike frames to disposable containers and Martian rover parts.
I learned about all of the above over the last 10 years as an engineering nerd. I’ve long been awaiting the day when the Armstrong process is the norm and titanium costs are super low. However that process creates powder, so this might also require low cost titanium 3D printers. All I know is investment can bring down these costs, and I’m glad to see apple doing it!
Bonus: these department of energy videos on the comically complex Kroll process[1] and the super simple Armstrong process[2]: