Dr. Drang, writing about the new iPhone 15 Pro:
The titanium alloy used in the phone was revealed by Isabel Yang about 57 minutes into the presentation. She called it Grade 5 titanium, which is an ASTM designation. It’s also known as Ti-6Al-4V, because its major alloying elements are aluminum at 6% and vanadium at 4%. Allison Sheridan talked about its properties earlier this month, and I’ve been assuming that it would be the alloy Apple would choose ever since I heard they were switching to titanium for the band.
I guessed it would be Ti-6Al-4V because it’s the garden-variety alloy for titanium. A great material, but not exotic in any way. Apart from many aerospace applications, it’s also used in medical implants, so you know that skin contact won’t be a problem.
He goes on to describe the “thermo-mechanical process” used to build these new phones. This is a great read, as you’d expect.