Apple has filed for a patent that could make your iPhone land on its feet.
The patent, discovered on Thursday, features a mechanism that can shift the weight of the device during a fall, protecting the most delicate parts.
Apple’s filing for a “Protective Mechanism for an Electronic Device” shows that the company is looking to protect its fragile devices. To avoid damage from a fall, this mechanism would need multiple systems to work effectively.
One system would have to be able to detect if and when the device is falling. It would also need to be able to determine the device’s location relative to the ground. The patent mentions a number of different ways to achieve this, like simple gyroscopes, position sensors or accelerometers, but also speaks of using GPS or imaging sensors.
Connected to whichever sensor detects whether the device is falling is a processor that can determine how far the device is from the ground, how fast its falling and time to impact. The patent even describes the processor as storing this data from other falls, allowing your iPhone to effectively learn how to fall.
“In one example, the protective mechanism is configured to alter the device orientation as the device is falling,” the patent filing says. “This 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.”
Even wackier are the methods the patent mentions that will allow the device to reorient itself. The filing describes a moveable weight hidden within the phone, a system to “grip a plug” (whatever that could mean) and a gas cannister that could propel the device to safety (or maybe just a safer position for falling), reports Apple Insider, who discovered the filing.
This is great news, but we’ll be truly impressed when Apple develops a “toilet-avoidance system” or a protective casing that will deploy in the event of a washing machine incident.
