Apple has a significant amount of cash available to solve its many needs, and as such, it gives the company enough leverage to gain some very lucrative negotiations with suppliers. Something else that Apple’s cash is useful for, is in retaining exclusive rights to certain products, even if only for a certain period of time. Some of these benefits we’ve seen in how Apple was able to acquire the technology behind Touch ID, but we’ve even seen this in products Apple has still not used.

Liquidmetal Technologies Inc. is a very famous case of how Cupertino can use its money in a product it has rarely used. Apple has held an exclusivity deal with this company for years now, when it comes to using its special metal alloys for consumer electronics, and today we hear that Cupertino is extending the contract for another year. These metals are special because of their unique properties including high strength, corrosion resistance, light weight, and malleability. Oddly though, the reason why this deal is so famous is because, even though we did see Apple use these special alloys in the SIM ejector tool for the iPhone 3GS, it’s hard to remember any other use for it.

Apple does have a few patents using this technology for iOS home buttons, touch sensors, and even tamper-resistent screws, but that’s it. Let’s see if the iPhone 6s proves further use for this product.

Source: Liquidmetal.com
Via: Mac Rumors