Unbreakable iPhone: New mechanism to prevent cracking

Your next Apple phone might never break again. Well it is not because of the sapphire screen, which never managed to get on into the iPhones, but a new protection mechanism that will prevent the phone from cracking, especially after a fall.

In what could be a revolutionary new technology, Apple applied and succeeded in registering the new patent that ultimately protects the device from a free fall.

The patent clearly reveals that Apple has come up with not one but multiple options and mechanisms to achieve this – which includes a system that re-orients the device during a fall, to how components can be ejected out of the device during a fall to a new gripping mechanism wherein the an attached power chord or an ear phone might be employed to save the device from hitting the ground.

As the patent application describes, the protective mechanism, configured to alter the device orientation as the device is falling, may allow a less vulnerable portion of the device to impact the surface at the end of a freefall. ]“For example, the protective mechanism may be activated to rotate the device so that it may impact a surface on its edge, rather than on a screen portion. Similarly, the protective mechanism may alter the device orientation by altering the angular momentum of the device, so that  the orientation of the device (as it is falling) may be altered. “So the device may be rotating around a particular rotational axis when it first enters free fall and the protective mechanism may cause the device to rotate around a different rotational axis,” the note reads.

In yet another example the patent notes that “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 and may include a gas canister that may deploy the compressed gas outside of the device to change its orientation.”

It does not stop there, the new system 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,  thereby help to reduce the force of impact as the device hits the surface, as the momentum of the device may be reduced.”

The mechanism could even help protect the device by altering components in order to attempt to prevent impact with a surface. “For example, 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,” the note reads.

Finally Apple notes that a new 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, the grip members may expand within the audio port to grip or otherwise retain the headphones. 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,” it says.

According to recent reports several billions are spent only to rectify phones that cracks following a fall. The new patent could result the next generation of iPhones that after all might never break with or without the sapphire screen.

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