Apple patents NEVERSMASH iPHONE for fumbling fondlers Apple has filed a patent that could save iPhones from certain death when they crash to the ground. The patent is called "protective mechanism for an electronic device" and allows an iThing to rotate whilst in freefall. When it begins its journey to terminal velocity, the iPhone will be saved by a motor connected to an " …
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To get a 100+gram phone to rotate at the sorts of speeds it needs to between butterfingers and concrete would require quite a motor and reaction wheel. The wheel would need to be quite large, or the motor quite fast, but either way, it would need a huge impulse to work. Satellites have these systems to allow them to rotate without the need for rocket fuel, but the weights work best when they are NOT eccentric. I suspect this is to utilise the existing vibration motor.
It won't work unless they beef it up a couple of orders of magnitude, by which point they will have attracted a whole new market!
Oh, and they would need three motors/wheels.
"I still don't think it would work."
It doesn't need to. Somebody in Apple has just hit the incentivised target for registering patents, the company gets free publicity from a (largely) credulous press, and the adoring fanbois will now buy any Apple device and believe it includes this technology.
All of which is a lot better for Apple than the simpler approach of designing devices that are easy to disassemble or replace parts on. Where's the value in that? Next thing you know fanbois would be replacing batteries themselves, instead of upgrading to the next shiney because the last one goes flat in eight hours.
Why not use harpoons? It worked for Philae. After all that bounced so high, it took 2 hours to come down again...
Oh, hang on. I think I've got that wrong. OK, how about it harpoons your leg, and avoids bounceage that way. I'm sure none of us would mind a small leg wound, in order to save our precious mobiles.
" OK, how about it harpoons your leg, and avoids bounceage that way. I'm sure none of us would mind a small leg wound, in order to save our precious mobiles."
Um, how about a simple lanyard connecting the phone to your pocket?
Then if you drop it, it just ends up slapping your knees.
Most people already seem to use it like a pocketwatch, might as well dress it like one, eh?
I apologize for adding a serious comment to your query, but I value mt epidermal integrity highly, since I'm allergic to harpoons.
(They HURT!)
>Ironically removing the issues of tight clearance and miniscule crumple-zone which causes a drop to generate serious damage in the first place.
[my emphasis]
Really?
Just buy a case - available on every high street for next to eff-all.
Regardless of whether its an Apple, Samsung, HTC or whatever phone- the user can buy a case for it that is suitable for the user's day-to-day environment. The user is a better judge of that environment than the phone vendor. Phones should not all be built like tanks, because that would limit the user's ability to balance bulk against resilience to their taste.
That said, a certain Japanese phone manufacturer has a well-received range of phones that feature nylon (as opposed to ABS) corners.
I apologize for adding a serious comment to your query, but I value mt epidermal integrity highly, since I'm allergic to harpoons.(They HURT!)
CaptainDaFt,
What a wuss! What's a little pain, compared with having the shiniest smartphone?
Anyway, I'm sure you exaggerate. I doubt you're really allergic to harpoons. Just harpoon intolerant...
By the time they've fitted in the size of weights required to perform this tumble, the phone is going to be twice the thickness and weight it was before.
Ironically removing the issues of tight clearance and miniscule crumple-zone which causes a drop to generate serious damage in the first place.
Aside from the issue of how to generate enough torque to spin the gadget to a safe orientation (which, BTW, would probably require motors on two orthogonal axes), there is also the intriguing question of how the iThing can determine which way is up once it is free-falling. Without that information, there's no way to identify a "safe" orientation to try for. Finding "up" while falling (or being thrown) is trickier than you might think; an object in free fall experiences no external G force to tell it which way is up (neglecting air friction, a reasonable approximation here), and the device orientation Before The Fall isn't much use either, as it will be pretty random. In fact, I would go so far as to suggest that it will be effectively impossible for the free-falling iThing to reliably identify "up" in this situation.
This leaves only one option: an iAirbag (presumably NOT Bulgarian).
"And somehow it calculates its height above some object below it? How, just HOW?"
Easy. If my name happened to registered on that phone (*), it knows, the freefall trajectory is actually a higher velocity arc thrown over some distance, and first impact will be some brick wall. Second impact would be a concrete floor a certain distance above the first impact (calculated by my height, throwing arm, velocity detected leaving my hand, time in the air etc. It would even be in the air for long enough to call up the weather service and calculate for windspeed.
Of course, all of this requires significant firmware, possibly not leaving room for other things, like phone functionality, or less so, a calendar, or other non-important things like apps and such, OK, may be one farting app (so choose wisely!).
(*) Chuckle, I would never put my name to any Apple device. I was done with that many years ago.
Or buy a £2 grippy silicon case, and not drop the fucking thing in the first place.
As an added bonus, it actually protects the phone from all but direct pointy thing to screen damage.
I've never dropped mine in four years of smart-phone use, and my current one year old Moto G is completely unmarked.
"Or buy a £2 grippy silicon case, and not drop the fucking thing in the first place."
Just superglue it to your hands. This will instantly solve the main problem of it being dropped, and have additional benefits: Those fanbois who like to show off their iShiny will have it permanently on show, and it will also be harder to steal.
>Or buy a £2 grippy silicon case
Proof that iPhone users are sooo sad they don't have a sense of humour. My first thought was to butter the back of it. Buying a case? That's for wussies.
I'd proffer that yours and many others have never been dropped nor marked because nobody ever calls you and as such remain in pristine condition. What's that? What about the calls made by you? Probably to sex phone lines made from the safe environment of you bed.
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"Samsung's patent will surely follow:"
Rotating the device is the best Apple can do 'cos it's all integrated.
Samsung could incorporate a battery launcher that fires the removeable battery at the floor momentarily slowing the phone before impact, so that the final free fall is a matter of a few cm. And they could also promote the kinetic battery launcher as a self defence tool.
Obviously mixing the sort of pyrotechnics used in a seat belt pretensioner with a lithium battery might have some downsides, particularly for Tesla drivers.
I would have thought if they're going to bother to implement anything this big and complex, it would be easier just to put a parachute inside the phone and use the accelerometer to trigger the release mechanism
Then again, we all know patents aren't about actually inventing things; they're about using litigation as a revenue stream as part of your normal business model :-(
... a bit like what's in Hitashi's finest then? Interesting.
On second thought, forget that shit. I want a proper delta wing for my phone, deployed if it detects a fall, able to locate the nearest source of ascending currents, and to use that to gain altitude and land back in my hand. I think I'd even give up on getting a flying car for a phone like that.
"As well as eccentric weights, which are already used in the gyroscopes of iPhones, ..."
I thought the integrated gyroscope used micro-machined beams with a mass at the end and force/strain gauge sensors on the beams? Am I thinking too 'modern'? One day, they'll use ring laser gyros I suppose.
If you strap a piece of toast (butter side up) to the back of a cat and throw it out the window, the competing forces will result in the mass coming to rest in equilibrium approximately 8 inches above the ground.
It has been calculated that as few as 329 cats used in this manner could support the average passenger train. HS2 was originally designed to exploit the cat/toast levitation effect and would have been known as the Interkitty express.
I've been doing this with motors for years - in my RC cars (Which weigh in at over 6KG with batteries).. Hit the throttle and it backflips whilst in the air, hit the brakes and it forward flips.. Steer and do either of the above and it is possible to control sideways angle to a degree as well.
Point is - a suitably fast brushless motor (maybe around 100K RPM) and a smallish weight should be enough to alter the angle of a 150g phone!
"I've been doing this with motors for years - in my RC cars (Which weigh in at over 6KG with batteries).. Hit the throttle and it backflips whilst in the air, hit the brakes and it forward flips.. Steer and do either of the above and it is possible to control sideways angle to a degree as well."
It's also a well-known tactic for motocross racing to orient the motorcycle for landing.
Seriously, why is it that everyone seems to be convinced that the "best phone" is a bendy", buttonless, water-sensitive, glass-covered slab anyhow (and I'm not just talking about iPhones)?
How about, since everybody has decided that physical keyboards don't work, designers use the lack of keyboard to make the phones highly shock and water resistant? That way every second person on the train won't be looking at a cracked sheet of glass. I can only assume that people like to own phones with cracked glass and expensive insurance.
Perhaps Apple's software can use a combination of cell tower triangulation, GPS and the accelerometer to determine position and height above ground to the centimetre.
All it then needs is to re-route battery power to a fine wire mesh on the outside of the phone, at each intersection the mesh passes through a maize kernel, the current rapidly heats the wire, thus popping the corn which cushions the landing and provides the fanboi with a nourishing snack after the prevention of a potentially horrendous accident ( providing it doesn't land in doggy doo or a similarly unpleasant landing zone.
The real intention is to do the opposite - add a hidden feature which deliberately rotates a falling iPhone to ensure it lands on the most vulnerable point. No one wants an iWatch, iPads have peaked and they've run out of ideas to sell new iPhones. With peak Apple approaching and an expensive HQ to pay for, they've got to come up with a way of increasing future sales of iPhones.
1. Nokia feature phones - separate into front, back, battery and guts on impact (3-5mm air gap between LCD and outer plastic window, too)
2. Wii remote - wrist strap
3. Key cards / lanyards / retractable clips
4. Soft rubberised floors like in Playparks. Actually, yes - this should be rolled out everywhere to protect our iThings. Much more convenient than 1,2 and 3 ;-)
I suggest a cat is an "eccentric" weight and it can also extend aerofoils (feet and tail) and manipulate its center of mass during freefall.
I would be impressed if the iPhone survived a 2 story fall better than a fumbling grip near ground level as effectively as cats.
Given the technical overlap I am afraid the "kitty" will have to be raided for licences insted of food...:)
Maybe this is the long rumoured phone of the Apple apocalypse to come, The Fruity one's "Very very Frightening" feature, the actual Phone has become a Drone which follows your every step, connecting to every Web service you desire, Incredible, Amazing and "it will just work, Drone!".
All my iDevices are protected by LifeProof cases. Each have been in swimming pools, dropped repeatedly on concrete, thrown down the stairs ( multiple times by the kids) and I've never had so much as a scratch on any of them.
Expensive case? Yep. But I've never had to replace a device because it was broken. I'm pretty sure the materials cost about $0.50. Seems like phone manufacturers could just include a free case.
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