I think you miss the point -- if Apple is using sapphire, they won't just use a solid chunk as Corning wants you believe. Using thin layers allows some flexibility in most of the aforementioned materials, and doping of said material means the world (carbon in steel, for example). The better questions to ask: Is it pure alumina? Laminated or not? Bonded to silicates? Plastic? With what bonding agent(s)?
Those answers will more thoroughly determine its flexibility as they have profound differences on the various force moduli.
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As I mentioned before, doping means quite a bit. I'm med chem, so I don't know materials science very well, but a lot of materials considered "inflexible" do have a fair amount of elastic give. You can start to alter Young's modulus with small % changes in composition, as shown here for base glass. Unsurprisingly, bulk sapphire has a much higher Young's modulus (345 GPa according to here, but again it comes back to composition and bonding to substrate -- are they even using pure alumina?
I would love for someone with a materials chemistry background to clarify all this.
EDIT: For reference, I also looked up Corning's Willow Glass, which is marketed as flexible substrate glass. It has a nominal E of 70-80Gpa, though it is borosilicate glass so its more shatter prone. Unsurprisingly, Corning recommends using Gorilla glass as its bonded cover glass, which clearly doesn't impact the flexibility too much.