Ever since the door of a Boeing 737 was ripped off the plane en route from Portand to Ontario on January 5, leading to two cell phones falling from an altitude of almost 5,000 meters, the phenomenon has aroused curiosity. This is because one of the smartphones, an iPhone, was not found in a "mush" of circuits scattered on the ground, as you might expect, but intact. Not a scratch on it.
"I found an iPhone on the side of the road... Still in airplane mode with half the battery," wrote American Sean Safyre in a post on X. The sturdy smartphone was open in a baggage claim email from the Alaska Airlines flight, which confirmed the giant drop.
It's safe to assume that many iPhone owners were not only impressed, but also annoyed by the news: so they break when they fall out of your pocket just once and then survive plane crashes?
It doesn't make sense and so, recently, in order to understand the baffling durability of these famous smartphones, a journalist from The Wall Street Journal and his producer embarked on a series of tests that involved dropping the Apple iPhone 14 and Samsung Galaxy S23 models from heights of 0.90 meters, nine meters and 91 meters onto different surfaces to assess their resistance.
The test
To get to the bottom of the matter, the team carried out the experiments at the Sussex County Fairgrounds in New Jersey, in a controlled environment free from unintentional damage to passers-by.
The test was intended to reflect the latest durability claims made by Apple and Samsung. The phones tested boasted advanced Corning glass technology that was supposed to increase their robustness.
The drop tests were meticulously planned: a drone designed by the producer was used to drop the phones from specific heights, targeting landing zones on grass and asphalt.
On grass
The results were revealing. The phones survived falls of 0.90 meters and nine meters onto grass without significant damage, confirming the resistance provided by natural surfaces
The most dramatic part of the test was the drop from a height of 90 meters. Despite the considerable height, the phones suffered only minor cosmetic damage, such as grass stains and dirt on the charging ports, thanks to the fact that they had reached their terminal velocity, which limited the speed of the fall due to air resistance.
Mark Rober, a former NASA engineer, and Rhett Allain, a physics professor, explained the science behind these results.
"It doesn't matter if you drop your phone from 90 meters up or from space, the result will be the same because of something called terminal velocity," explained the engineer. The acceleration of an object due to gravity is eventually compensated for by air resistance, leading to a constant speed during the fall.
The softer landing provided by the grass also helped to reduce the impact, showing why the iPhone managed to survive the plane's extreme fall.
And on asphalt?
The same phones behaved differently on asphalt.
Tests on this harder surface revealed the limitations of the phones' durability. A fall of 0.90 meters resulted in small cuts and dents, but a fall of nine meters caused significant damage. The iPhone's rear glass shattered and the Galaxy's screen was severely cracked, affecting its functionality.
