So, you just bought your new iPhone 9 and you're showing it off to your friends. Of course, the inevitable occurs when you try to let one of your friends handle the apple of your eye:
Your state of the art technological wonder, that you waited two days in line (and signed a 5 year contract with AT&T - without an insurance plan) to obtain, is mishandled and begins crashing towards the earth. Each millisecond it is in free fall it gets closer to terminal velocity and its inevitable demise. Most of your friends recoil in horror, but one of them makes a valiant effort to arrest the fall, failing in his attempt. Yet you remain calm and cool while you think to yourself, "Heh, there's an app for that."
The dogged reporters at
Apple Insider have uncovered a
patent application filed by Apple, Inc. which may forever solve the "Oops, I dropped my iPhone and it broke" problem. iPootie technology which will insure that the iPhone always lands on its "feet".
Apple is very well known for its use of technology to solve man and womankind's most vexing problems. So rather than simply make the iPhone tougher, their solution is one of technological elegance:
In order to work, the system needs a sensor or sensor array that can detect when a device is in freefall and how it is positioned relative to the ground. These can be simple gyroscopes, accelerometers or position sensors, but the patent also notes more advanced components like GPS and imaging sensors may be employed. Coupled to the sensor is a processor that can help determine a freefall state, including how fast a device is falling, how far away it is from the ground and time to impact, among other metrics. Statistics of various fall heights, speeds and other data can be stored on system memory to aid the processor in making a decision on how best to land the device.
...
Finally, the system requires a mechanism to either reorientate the device while in flight, or otherwise protect certain sensitive device components in the event of a fall. Here, the patent calls for a number of solutions, including the movement of a weighted mass within the device, a means to "grip a plug" to prevent a freefall, lift foils that can be extended out from the surface of a device, and a thrust mechanism such as a can of gas, among other countermeasures.
Indeed, the patent application includes a number of alternatives to protect the device - some examples:
[0028] In one example, the protective mechanism is configured to alter the device orientation as the device is falling. ... the device may be rotating around a particular rotational axis when it first enters freefall and the protective mechanism may cause the device to rotate around a different rotational axis.
[0030] In another example, the protective mechanism may vary the angular momentum and/or orientation of the device during freefall by activating a thrust mechanism. The thrust mechanism may produce a thrust force in one or multiple directions in order to reorient the device. For example, the thrust mechanism may include a gas canister that may deploy the compressed gas outside of the device to change its orientation.
[0031] In yet another example, the protective mechanism may activate an air foil to change the aerodynamics of the mobile electronic device. The air foil may help to reduce a velocity of the free-fall of the device by producing a lift force. In this example, the air foil may help to reduce the force of impact as the device hits the surface, as the momentum of the device may be reduced (as the velocity of the fall may be reduced).
[0032] ... the protective device may contract buttons, switches, or the like that may be exposed on an outer surface of the enclosure, so that the buttons or switches may be protected within the enclosure at impact. This may help to prevent the buttons or switches from being damaged...
[0033] In another example, the protective device may include a gripping member configured to grip onto a power cord, headphone cord, or the like that may be partially received within the device. For example, headphones may be inserted within an audio port and the headphones may be operably connected to a user's head. As the device experiences a freefall (e.g., is dropped by the user), the grip members may expand within the audio port to grip or otherwise retain the headphones (or other plug). This may help to prevent the device from impacting a surface, or may at the least slow down or reduce the velocity at impact, which may give a user a chance to grasp the device.
Of course, the engineers at Apple realize that an iPhone is never dropped just once, so:
[0034] The electronic device may also store information correlating to various impacts and freefalls of the device. This information may include the drop heights, drop frequency, device orientation prior to the drop, and/or drop velocity. This type of fall or drop information may be stored in order to improve or better protect the device from impacts due to freefalls. For example, the information may be used by the phone to better estimate a predicted freefall orientation and activate a particular protective mechanism or device. In another example, the information may be provided to a device manufacturer so that the device may be constructed to better withstand the most common freefall impacts, such as but not limited to, creating a thicker enclosure on a particular area of the device, relocating particular components within the device, or changing an overall shape of the device.
It should be noted that Apple has apparently chosen to disregard the Mars Rover approach to landing an iPhone, and no air bag deployment system was included in the patent application. Until this new technology is perfected and integrated into the iPhone, one of the readers at Apple Insider has come up with a novel way to protect his investment, AI user "Plagen" says:
"Just spread some butter over the side opposite to the fragile one"
While I applaud Apple's forward thinking approach to solve this problem, I did notice one obvious case missing from their analysis: the ubiquitous iPhone meets commode bowl scenario.