Cracked iPhone screens could become thing of the past thanks to glass breakthrough

Phones are being made out of more and more glass – making them easier and more distressing to smash

Dropping your phone might be about to become slightly less painful.

Gorilla Glass – which makes the glass for just about every premium phone – has been upgraded and so newer phones should be far less likely to smash.

Manufacturer Corning claims the new glass is twice as likely to survive drops as its predecessor. It can also can survive 15 drops from 1m in height onto rough surfaces, it claimed.

Often, changes that stop phones from smashing also make it slightly more liable to being scratched. But Corning claims the new glass is just as able to resist that kind of damage as the predecessor, Gorilla Glass 5.

“As consumers become more dependent on their smartphones, the opportunity for potentially damaging drops is also on the rise. Now more than ever, it’s critical that the cover glass provides outstanding protection,” said John Bayne, vice president and general manager at Corning Gorilla Glass. “Corning Gorilla Glass 6 improves upon Gorilla Glass 5 by surviving drops from higher heights, but, more importantly, has been engineered to survive multiple drops.”

As phones become more important, dropping and smashing them becomes more painful than ever. But it also becomes easier, since many modern phones have screens that wrap all the way around the front of the phone – and glass that carries on around the back to allow for wireless charging.

Corning says the new Gorilla Glass is designed for those changes as well, allowing for printed glass backs and other design changes.

“In addition to addressing drop height and drop frequency, Gorilla Glass 6 was also developed to meet the requirements of modern designs that use glass for more than 85 percent of the enclosure. With both its aesthetic and performance advantages, glass is on the right side of the technology curve and will continue to be the material of choice for mobile consumer electronics,” said Scott Forester, division vice president, Marketing and Innovation Products, Corning Gorilla Glass.

Gorilla Glass is used in many of the world's premium phones. The latest iPhone and Samsung flagship models use it, for instance, and Corning claims it is in more than 6 billion devices by more than 45 major brands.

The new version is "currently being evaluated by multiple customers, and is expected to reach the market in the next several months", the company said. That could mean that it is ready for the new versions of the iPhone, for instance, which are expected to be revealed by Apple in September.