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IPhone 4 Survives 1,000 Foot Fall From Plane
tekgoblin writes "From the article: 'US Air Force Combat controller Ron Walker had lost his iPhone 4 from his aircraft during flight. He works as a Jump Master, which is where he would ensure the airplane was in the correct position when he sends parachute jumpers out. The plane was moving at 150 mph and while looking out the door of the plane to find necessary ground landmarks his pocket opened and his iPhone flew out. When he noticed his phone fell, he thought all was lost. Upon landing and sharing the story with friends he installed the Find My iPhone app on one of their phones and went looking for his phone. He expected it to be battered from the fall but found the phone to be 100% un-damaged from the fall. The phone was protected by a Griffin Motif TPU iPhone case but it isn't clear whether the case protected the phone from the fall or the fact that it was cushioned by the brush that it hit.'"
That WAS the article, minus the last sentence.
So we know now that the iPhone 4 can survive a 1000ft fall as long as it doesnâ(TM)t hit concrete, I wonder if Apple will talk about this at one of their next iPhone announcements.
There, now you've read the entire article.
Big deal, I've lost my Nokia E51 from 4000 feet during parachute operations, same situation, fell into a bush. Only found it because of the anti-theft GPS Tracking software on it.
My old iPhone 4 shattered in a 3-foot fall from my pocket to the concrete...
The new one hasn't had a scratch on it since, though.
iPhones are like cats, dropping them from less than 2 meters doesn't give them enough time to brace for impact. Drop it higher.
.. dropped calls.
(Thank you, thank you. I'll be here all week. If you're unlucky).
Small objects have proportionately more drag for their weight so their terminal velocity may not be that fast, reached earlier (so overheight doesn't matter) and damage less.
Another case of why there are no flying pigs -- weight increases as the cube of length, while drag increases as the square. So lots of flying bugs.
Your colleague should have kept a small shrubbery at the side of her desk to cushion falling objects (assuming that's the morale of the article).
It would read 1G after it had hit the ground (stationary lying on the ground), but during the impact, it would be far more than that. It would read 0G during freefall (as this is the definition of freefall). The deceleration as it hits the ground would be very high, (possibly even as much as 100G+) because the time to decelerate is so small, and the distance over which it decelerates is tiny.
Explains why the Knights wanted a shrubbery. How Monty Python knew about iPhones back then is anybody's guess though...
-Space for rent
Anyone know the tumbling terminal velocity of an iPhone? After a certain height it's all the same (until you start getting high enough that the iPhone will burn up in the atmosphere).
(monty)An African or European iPhone? (/monty)
Donte Alistair Anderson Roberts - hi son!
Karma: Chameleon
Well, if there's a landing strip where the bush has been cleared, aim for that.
If it's wide open space instead, give thanks for your good fortune and aim for the open space where the bush used to be.