Apple and sapphire supplier will finally bury their $439 million hatchet

Even the new iPhone 6S and 6S Plus don't have sapphire screens. (credit: Andrew Cunningham)

After months of fighting, the Wall Street Journal reports that Apple and onetime sapphire supplier GT Advanced Technologies have reached an agreement that could dig GT out from under the $439 million debt it still owes to Apple.

Under the terms of the deal, which still needs to be approved by a bankruptcy judge, GT will auction off at least 1,400 of the 2,000 sapphire-making furnaces it bought in anticipation of supplying sapphire glass for Apple's products. The two companies will split the proceeds, and Apple will dispose of any equipment that remains and forgive any remaining debt.

The GT Advanced Technologies saga has been playing out since late 2013, when it signed a deal to supply Apple with scratch-resistant sapphire screens for iPhones and other gadgets (some Apple Watches use sapphire screens, and the TouchID buttons and camera lenses on iPhones also use sapphire). The sapphire glass was supposed to be ready for the iPhone 6 in September of 2014, but that phone launched with a glass display and GT Advanced filed for bankruptcy just a few weeks later.

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