Liquidmetal, a “metallic glass” developed by a Caltech research team, is still too expensive to be used in large scale manufacturing, but that hasn’t stopped Cupertino’s finest from getting the technology to manufacture it in a factory on lock. Recently, Apple and Liquidmetal Technologies’s joint holding company, Crucible Intellectual Property, was awarded a patent for a technique to create sheets of the material between 0.1 and 25 mm thick and in up to three meters in width. While we may not know what this means specifically, you can be sure that Apple’s geniuses are working hard to make the next generation of iPhones and iPads lighter, sleeker and more desirable than their competition.