We've recently saw the amazing flexibility and resistance properties of the (alleged) iPhone 6 sapphire glass screen, but if thought it was strange to see sapphire bend so much, then you won't be surprised to find out that it isn't actually 100% pure sapphire.
There's a hardness scale that goes from 1 to 10, 10 being something as hard as diamond, a metal knife being 5.5, and a steel nail being 6.5. If you scratch two different materials, the lower numbered material will rub off on the harder material, making no dent whatsoever.
Gorilla Glass has a hardness of 6.8, and that's why it can safely resist even the scratching of a steel nail - but as users will find out, there's still some scratches that can show up. Sapphire on the other hand, has a hardness of 9, making it virtually impossible to scratch, unless you happen to carry diamonds in your pocket.
But Sapphire is a lot harder to produce, not to mention more expensive that Gorilla Glass. And even though Apple has made a huge investment in Sapphire glass production, it seems that the iPhone 6 will be a "sort of sapphire". In the following video we see that the new iPhone 6 glass is harder than the Gorilla Glass in the iPhone 5S, but that is can still get scratched by sandpaper with hardness 7 - although to a lesser extent.
As for the touch ID button, that one is pure Sapphire, as can be attest by resisting any kind of scratches you might throw at it. So... the iPhone 6 will be slight harder to scratch than any previous iPhone screen... but, we're not yet at Sapphire levels yet.
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