One way would be to have an accelerometer detect that the phone is falling, and have tiny spring-actuated bumpers, wires, or feet extend from the corners of the phone to catch its fall. Little stainless-steel or Nitinol wires would do great.

Here's a patent for the idea which just expired this year: https://patents.google.com/patent/US7059182B1/

Apple also patented some versions of this, although I think not as nice as the 2005 one: https://patents.google.com/patent/US9571150B2

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SoftTalker 3 days ago | parent | next [-]

Back when the early iPods actually contained a spinning hard drive, they had something similar. If it detected a fall, it would quickly park the hard drive to avoid damage.

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esseph 3 days ago | parent [-]

Same for ThinkPads.

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mikestew 3 days ago | parent [-]

And MacBook Pros.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sudden_Motion_Sensor

Though I don't recall iPods having that feature, nor can I find anything online supporting that claim.

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numpad0 2 days ago | parent [-]

Macs had it as a machine feature. All others had it in the drives themselves.

	▲	esseph 2 days ago \| parent [-]
		That is not true Lenovo/IBM have a Free Fall Sensor in the laptop. https://www.lenovo.com/us/en/glossary/ffs/

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esseph 3 days ago | parent | prev [-]

Can't wait until the sensor is hacked and it becomes a remote controlled implement of pain.