Just as a cat can twist and contort its body in mid-air so that it always lands on its feet, the next iPhone may be able to change its centre of gravity so that it always lands screen-up – potentially making cracked displays a thing of the past.
Apple has received approval for a patent that describes a phone which can sense when it has been dropped, thanks to the built-in motion sensors, and use the motor normally employed to make a vibrating ringtone to shift in mid-air so that the screen is facing directly upwards when it lands. This, it claims, makes breakages less likely.
The patent also describes how the battery could be ejected from the phone in order to change the direction it is spinning – using momentum, just like Sandra Bullock’s character in Gravity when she squirts a fire extinguisher to propel herself to safety.
If this hasn’t yet gone beyond the realms of plausibility, the patent also goes on to describe how the phone could employ “air foils” to change its aerodynamics and rotate itself that way.
It even suggests that a headphone socket could be made to contract when it detects a fall, potentially stopping an impact with the floor by using the lead as a safety cord – but potentially causing some painful problems for the user’s ears.
The patent application was filed in March this year but was only approved today. It is not the first unusual invention in this area that the company has seen fit to protect with a patent: it already has protection for an idea that uses canisters of gas to orientate itself when it falls, just like a satellite does in orbit.
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