iPhone survives 16,000-foot drop after Alaska Airlines blowout

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Originally published at: iPhone survives 16000-foot drop - Boing Boing

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It’s also pretty impressive that a random person actually put their phone in airplane mode.

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I recall a study some years back about how cats who fall from greater heights are more likely to survive than those who fall from 2nd or 3rd story windows. The explanation was related to having enough time to get their magical cat skeletons situated for the impact vs finding themselves in mid-rotation.

Therefore, we can safely conclude two things:

  • some iPhones contain a sufficient quantity of cats to functionally be cats (whether spherical or not is unclear) for the purposes of physics
  • somewhere between the height of my desk and 16k feet is the sweet spot that allows for sufficient adjustment to ensure survival
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I mean, it did land in some pretty grassy area which I assume was quite soft and its likely that it didnt reached the highest possible velocity (tumbling, and even maybe mostly horizontal in falling).

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Did they find the door-replacement panel yet, or did it shatter into thousands of pieces?

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Apparently a teacher (named Bob) found it in his backyard.

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and every item gets its own thread;

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Possibly the owner spends a lot of time on Unicorn Chasers.

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While falling 16,000 feet sounds impressive, due to terminal velocity the impact was likely the same as, say, 160 feet.

I wonder if anyone has empirically tested for the terminal velocity of an iPhone?

I live in metro Portland and this is the rainy season. If the iPhone fell on a grassy area, know that this time of the year everything is saturated. Walking across grass, for example, is like walking on a totally soaked sponge. There is little doubt this phenomenon attributed to the relative soft landing by the iPhone.

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