Apple discussed forming screens from super-hard “sapphire glass” 18 months ago with experts in the field, making a sapphire-fronted iPhone 6 highly likely, the Guardian has established. A video that apparently shows a 4.7in sapphire screen being bent under a foot and resisting attack from a knife and keys “could well be” legitimate, according to Professor Neil Alford of the department of materials at Imperial College, London. “I think Apple have been quite cunning,” Alford told the Guardian. “What I think they’ve done is make a screen out of sapphire, which is incredibly scratch resistant, incredibly hard and has a high elastic modulus – meaning it’s very stiff.” Apple already uses sapphire crystal for its camera lenses and the cover of the iPhone 5S’s Touch ID fingerprint sensor, but the super-hard material – the third hardest known – could make excellent screens.