An Apple Insider report could not confirm whether the cover was truly a sapphire glass cover since Apple refused to comment, but analyzed the iPhone cover stress test does offer a few clues about the material used.

 

For starters, most of the damage on the thin glass phone cover appeared where the 1.6-ton vehicle tire made contact. The shattered patterns appears that the impact from the edge spread towards the trailing edge, breaking off a significant portion of the window while the car moved over it.

 

The report observed the glass broke off cleanly without spider web patterns, suggesting it was the compressive force rather than a high-energy kinetic impact. This suggests the material could have been strengthened with laminated layers, but does not indicate the part is necessarily made of sapphire. However, the report did note few materials could withstand extreme bending while being scratch and shatter resilient.

 

Corning’s Gorilla Glass does share similar properties, but is vulnerable to high velocity impacts as shown in numerous smartphone drop tests, the report noted.