Fun on Friday: Apple Files Patent on Process to Make Solid Gold Cases

A few weeks ago, I told you about a company that is offering a 22-karat gold version of the iPhone. Yes. for a mere $69,995, you can strut about town with a gold phone pressed against your ear.

Well apparently, the folks at Apple want to get in on this action. Maybe they are worried the profit margin isn’t going to big enough on the $1,000 iPhone X. Whatever the reason, the company has reportedly filed a patent for making “enclosures for electronic devices” out of hardened gold. According to the CNBC report, the process will create a stronger metal suitable for enclosing Apple gadgets.

Since 18-karat gold has low hardness, Apple has an idea for hardening the precious metal into a crystalline form by mixing it with other metals and putting it through a special process of mixing, rolling, heating, cooling and aging the metal. t could also be used to process 24-karat gold, the patent said, and in combinations that have more or less of the total weight in gold.”

The patent application says, “The disclosure provides gold alloys with improved yield strength and improved hardness. With such an improved hardness, the gold alloys can have very good scratch resistance and improved durability for use as enclosures for electronic devices.”

So, when you drop your gold phone, it will be less likely to get scratched up and dented. Of course, the screen is still going to shatter. But that shouldn’t be a problem. You can probably afford to fix it. If you can’t, you maybe shouldn’t buy a gold phone to start with.

Anyway, according to the report, this won’t just be for phones. Apple says the process could also be used for tablet computers, notebook computers, instrument windows, appliance screens, and the like.

In other words, you could conceivably cover all of your electronic stuff in gold!

And apparently, Apple doesn’t subscribe to the old Henry Ford mantra. Remember that? “Any customer can have a car painted any color that he wants so long as it is black.” Well, you’ll be able to have your gold iPhone cover in colors that aren’t gold. Choices include yellow gold, red gold, rose gold, pink gold, white gold, gray gold, green gold, blue gold or purple gold.

Green gold? Really?

Yuck.

And wouldn’t green gold kind of defeat the purpose? It seems to me if you are plunking down thousands of dollars for a solid gold phone case, you’d want people to know it’s a solid gold phone case. Right? I mean, let’s be honest. This is a conspicuous consumption kind of purchase. You’re saying, “Look at me, I can afford to encase my phone in gold.” That really doesn’t work if the gold is colored green or purple. I’m pretty sure I can get an ugly green metal iPhone case on Amazon for around $4.99.

But hey, you be you. If you want a green gold iPhone case, that just might be an option down the road.

Or it might not.

As the CNBC article noted, most Apple patents never go into commercial development or even see the light of the lab in Cupertino.

But hey, if a gold iPhone is a must-have, right now, you do have that $70,000 option from Brikk, an LA-based company whose tagline is “Opulence Defined.”

Yup. Gold is viewed as opulent. That’s why a company can up the price of a phone by 6900% simply by making it out of the yellow metal. That green metal case you get on Amazon costs only $4.99 for a reason. Make it out of gold, suddenly it becomes valuable – even if it’s green.

Of course, you don’t have to buy a fancy iPhone to enjoy the value of gold. You can easily invest in gold and enjoy the wealth it affords without worrying about leaving your phone with its solid gold case in the restroom. Just call 1-888-GOLD-160 and one of our of our precious metals specialist will tell you more about how investing in gold can help you reach your financial goals. The number even works on an iPhone in a plastic case.

Fun on Friday is a weekly SchiffGold feature. We dig up some of the off-the-wall and off-beat stories relating to precious metals and the economy, and share them with you – with tongue firmly planted in cheek. Click here to read other posts in this series.

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