iPhone that fell from hole in Alaska 737 MAX flight is found, still open to Mail
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The gist is that it’s a light object and due to that + broad shape, its terminal velocity is not very high. Coupled that with the mass and there’s not a lot of force on landing. Of course the phone itself is fragile so it might not take a lot of force to break. Still, as long as it lands on something soft it might be ok, as we’ve seen!
(1) https://www.wired.com/2011/04/what-is-the-terminal-velocity-...
If it would have landed on the asphalt, concrete, marble it would have looked very different!
Modern electronics are quite the opposite of fragile, I'd say.
Old plastic phones were indestructible. I still have somewhere nokia 3310. It just refuses to die, unlike many smartphones I had.
Well for my money I think they're mostly nonsense.
I never use them and despite living in my pockets for years, my phone aren't scratched up. Cases are annoying and unwieldy, making it more likely I would drop my phone, and screen protectors make the screen look worse - which I think is what they're supposed to prevent?
I often go 5+ years with the same phone, so it's not like I write them off any faster. My S2 and S5 both lasted for ages, and they both still work perfectly fine - the only issue is that software "outgrew" them.
And there's absolutely 0 chance your screen doesn't have a ton of microscratches.
Not all phones are fragile. Ones with bodies made out of glass or aluminium are, ones with "nice to glide your finger along" glass screens can be. But those "features" are found in expensive phones.
Cheap phones, with their plastic bodies, flexible touch screens and removable batteries that tend to leave the case on impact are remarkably robust. As in "riding bike at 30km / hour, phone leaps out of pocket smashes into concrete gutter, covers and battery fly this way and that and so you have to dodge traffic to retrieve them" are perfectly fine after the incident, after reassembly. In fact on of my phones survived multiple rounds of that treatment.
Cheap phones being robust and expensive ones being delicate is a bug bear of mine. The one caveat is cheap phones are never water proof.
Cheap or expensive, I've never see the phones electronics damaged by an impact.
Only the edges are a bit scratched up.
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/8a/LG_Nexus...
I recently dropped mine by tagging by earphone wire and it landed on the top corner with a spectacular bang and cracked the whole screen.
Though it's the second phone I drop with consequences, after Ericsson A1018s.
Other people usually aren't that lucky.
One of my phones made multiple falls onto asphalt and iron grates to no worse than superficial edge band scratches.
One day it flipped onto my desk from a few inches and that cracked the screen.
Or maybe that's cats. Cats reputedly have a higher chance to survive a long drop than a short one because the long one gives them time to catch themselves and maybe slow down.
Angle of fall is another big one. From what I've seen phones are generally fine if they fall face up or down, but even a slight bump on the edges is enough to crack the glass.
It would be amusing if it fell into the lake on Nike Campus. It is fairly shallow, but if it was in the middle, it might not be noticed for a long time.
Have to admit, amazing plot and production, all in a minute!
The same behavior as turning off the phone.
[0] Full list https://support.apple.com/en-au/102412
Honestly did not consider that.
I do it because cell reception is quite poor at my house so calls are better off staying on wifi - also battery life is improved.
Sounds like the thing in the woods mentioned below was not the real deal and just some other bit of garbage or something that was dumped in the brush.
Previous comment:
I live in this neighborhood and saw a post on Nextdoor a little bit ago that indicates the door/panel may have been found. The text of the post is as follows: “My husband and I were walking the trail behind the Renaissance Town-homes near Barnes and Valeira View and we saw a large white oval object with a teal stripe on it in the brambles between the creek and Barnes Road. Two others saw it too and they called non-emergency. WCSO and the NTSB showed up but they could not affirm that that is what is was. As my husband said, nobody will know until they walk over to it. Unfortunately the undergrowth prevented us from doing so. We'll see, or not.”
The description of it having a teal stripe could match up with the missing panel, although we obviously can’t be sure yet if it is actually the missing part. I also saw a post from one of the folks who found a phone, and they had included a photo of where they found it, which I recognized to be fairly close to the place where the door was potentially found.
Sometimes we hear stuff on our roof, but it’s always just pinecones falling or a squirrel running around… makes me grateful we haven’t had a Donnie Darko scene in our yard or on our roof!
https://www.cnn.com/2024/01/07/us/alaska-airlines-faa-plug-d...
* The iPhone owner didn't put a password/passcode?
* Damn, he paid Alaska $70 for baggage fee?
* Now we know an iPhone will survive falling from the sky
It's very possible the phone has a passcode but was sucked out while someone was using it, and never put to sleep.
Also worth noting the owner had a screen protector, so that may have quashed that everlasting debate.
No screen crack is pretty good though. Smartphone screens have gotten crazy good recently
It looks like it has an intact screen protector. The impact does not appear to be that strong.
https://www.wolframalpha.com/input?i=terminal+velocity+of+an...
putting mildly, still it's lovely to see the mix the input of imperial and metric units.
the 'fluid' density is quite wrong as well. 1.29 kg/m^3 -> almost 777 times lighter than water, it's similar to air. By its dimension iphone 15 should be around twice heavier than water.
Of course that assumes it’s falling facing its largest surface, and not tumbling or a falling edge first. Obviously that is trickier to calculate, but 20-40mph doesn’t seem that unreasonable.
Edit: it takes ~3 seconds to reach 99% terminal velocity.
That was what I was thinking: surely it wouldn't be stable falling face-first? Wouldn't it be more likely to either tumble or settle on an edge?
There's also the possibility that it behaves more like an airfoil, and starts generating lift once it's going fast enough.
I was thinking exactly the same about the landing. If it lands in a soft place, like tall grass, most phones should be fine. Most phones are broken by falling onto hard surfaces.
Looks like that was the price for 2 bags, and it was just increased for tickets purchased this year [1].
[1] https://www.alaskaair.com/content/travel-info/baggage/checke...
EDIT: I see some people got offended with the bit about Non-Technical users and downvoted me to Hades. I apologize. Not everyone is paranoid like me.
It's a feelz > realz world where people vote with their feelz and you made them feel bad because they are doing dumb bad things.
It should always be possible to set a device timeout to never and allow WEP56 auth on your WiFi AP, but there should be a warning about the implications.
edit: I just checked and indeed the settings screen says it watches for attention, so I'm willing to give it a try and enable auto unlock now...
That said, I understand why most people want to use a phone screen lock.
I am sure this post will be downvoted.
A phone screen lock is a low friction, low cost solution for mitigating that small but impactful risk.
For example, you might take a flight, the plane break in flight and your phone is sucked out, falls on the ground and a stranger finds it.
Don't tell me I'm paranoid and that this scenario is not realistic.
While your uber drive is taking you home, you sleep while using your phone and it falls from your hand without you noticing.
The next passenger is not an honest person.
I like going out at night to bars and restaurants and having a "few" beers or one or two bottles of wine with my wife.
Me and my wife have lost a phone in a Uber after a night out (recovered in both situations, though).
I am not a mobile developer.
Autolock makes a lot of sense to me.
Based on https://www.alaskaair.com/content/travel-info/baggage/checke... it seems like that would be just two checked bags (not two extra bags, two bags!) and is irrelevant of your seat class? Be lucky the poor bloke didn't need a third bag, that's when it gets really expensive.
I guess I just have to chalk this up to yet another case of oddities in American flights I can't relate to.
I just looked up a flight, for example London to Paris. The cheapest BA ticket includes hand luggage for £57 each way, or the next option with checked baggage is £14 more.
I'm sure there probably are cheap-and-shit airlines that include nothing with the ticket price as you mention, but there clearly are also options where you pay a small fraction more (and certainly less than "additional baggage" charges) and have baggage included.
And you framed it as if every American airline charges extra for any baggage of any kind
I didn't proclaim "American airlines charge you extra" did I?
The latest innovation of low cost airlines, as of a few years ago, is to charge for even the hand luggage in an overhead bin. You can only take a really small bag which fits under the seat in front without paying. BA haven't yet got to that level (although I'm sure they will with time). BA tend to be 30-50% more for the base ticket though - so you pay for it one way or another.
For example, if you have the Alaska credit card you get a free checked bag for each of up to 6 people on your reservation.
It sucks that they gouge infrequent passengers, but if you fly even a couple times a year the perks are worth the card fee for whichever airline you fly most.
Also, international flights often do have free checked bags regardless.
They did let me prepurchase a pretzel though. (And then never gave it to me on the flight.)
I STILL don't understand the angle there, but I learned you can buy a plane ticket to anywhere in the world (except Australia and NZ), day-of; for about $2500.
Some airlines might not enforce that if you're deemed an important enough customer for them, but I just want to bring this up because being a no-show in the outbound flight and keeping the return flight is not a right that customers have in general, basically in any IATA airline. It's not really Lufthansa specific, those are rules that the whole industry applies.
The entire thing fell out of plane (phone + charging cable plugged), then landed in a tree, where the charging cable got tangled in branches and that's when phone broke out of it and fell in grass.
So phone was able to release kinetic energy in 2 big events (+a few branches hit maybe), not a direct splash on the ground.
Wonder if somehow they can analyze the accelerometer data of the phone and figure out if that correlates with that scenario.
I think dirt/grass is just a lot softer than the things we usually drop our phones over, like concrete or tile.
1: https://www.engadget.com/apple-patent-application-frayed-cab...
Besides, why would the NTSB hold onto the phone for years? It's not part of the aircraft, there's no real reason why they'd need to have it at all. Is it just common with US government agencies?
If I found the phone like that guy did my last thought would be to post pictures of the persons private emails and full name to the internet - and get a bunch of attention for it.
The bit of charging cable ripped at the bottom still tells how harsh the journey was before the landing.
He was working on a movie and cast some paraplegics. One when asked said it was an accident, but didn't want to talk. Fred eventually got the story out of him.
He had been a paratrooper in WW 2. His parachute didn't open. But he landed in a big tree. Shaken, bruised, scratched up, and so on, but basically fine.
Climbing out of the tree he fell, and broke his neck.
It's the landing that does it, not the fall.
That said, falling out of the tree checks out because that _is_ dangerous. Modern US Airborne training teaches a whole lot of caution when doing so. Best case you wait for someone to extricate you, but worst case (or for a combat jump), you deploy the reserve chute and then slide down it like a rope.
I don't know if they were using reserves in WWII (might have depended), but combat jump altitude is typically too low to have time to deploy your reserve. Better to chance the landing, than a hail storm of lead from the ground.
Source: 36 not-so-soft (non-combat) landings.
In WW 2, only US paratroopers had reserve chutes. This was likely a British paratrooper. So no reserve chute.
And yes. Climbing out of a tree while shaking from adrenaline is scary dangerous. But it is the sort of risk that takes experience to appreciate. In WW 2, nobody had experience.
“Air safety investigators attributed Vulović's survival to her being trapped by a food trolley in the DC-9's fuselage as it broke away from the rest of the aircraft and plummeted towards the ground. When the cabin depressurized, the passengers and other flight crew were blown out of the aircraft and fell to their deaths. Investigators believed that the fuselage, with Vulović pinned inside, landed at an angle in a heavily wooded and snow-covered mountainside, which cushioned the impact.[1][a] Vulović's physicians concluded that her history of low blood pressure caused her to pass out quickly after the cabin depressurized and kept her heart from bursting on impact.[7] Vulović said that she was aware of her low blood pressure before applying to become a flight attendant and knew that it would result in her failing her medical examination, but she drank an excessive amount of coffee beforehand and was accepted.[3]”
It seems she’s the opposite of that Hawaii flight that lost the roof and one flight attendant.
The phone's owner experienced a traumatic incident. Which furthermore is under investigation.
Posting some kind of photo feels OK, however, since finding the phone is arguably newsworthy. And the Twitter poster says that it was open to that email, suggesting that they didn't go snooping through the phone. A little privacy redaction/cropping would've helped.
What kind of of evidence do you think it has on it?
49 CFR § 830.10 appears to be one of the regulations on the subject [1].
If they keep it and it becomes known, people who e.g. took videos of incidents would become reluctant to come forward and share them, worried that the government might want to take the phone that recorded the video. They'd lose a lot of useful evidence in future cases, on top of the terrible PR it'd be.
Edit: The agency also relies a lot on the goodwill of the public. Investigations work a lot better when school teacher Bob, finding an aircraft piece in his back yard, contacts the NTSB and tells them to come get it, rather than deciding to quickly bring it inside and turn it into a coffee table later. And public perception can totally make the difference between "this might help them, let me call them immediately" and "screw those guys, it's mine now, will make a really nice coffee table".
At best it may have recorded a high number of down steps in an health app because of the fall.
Maj. Eaton : We have top men working on it right now.
Indiana : Who?
Maj. Eaton : Top... men.Me too. But this is a faux pas at worst.
Over 40% of Vietnamese share the same surname, and only about a dozen or so are in common usage.
The name reveals very little about the owner.
Although it may well have been reconfigured, by default iPhones will lock up after a short inactivity.
simpler explanation, it's 2023 apple code...
This is an atypical choice, but I always lock when I’m done and don’t encounter any issues from this choice.
I try to avoid modern Boeing aircraft as well.
I hear your point, but everything really important on my phone is behind another wall of passwords/pin protection, and I am meticulous about backups. The physical device doesn’t matter much. I’ll put it on stolen mode remotely, force an email sign out, and just assume it’s dead because they won’t be able to turn off Find My.
I also work from home, so I’m more suited to having it in this mode of operation.
That said, from now on I'll probably have auto-lock turned on when flying.
I think you are far far more likely to have a random cardiac arrest or stroke while you are looking at your phone than have it ripped out of your hands in an airplane. The former has happened to several otherwise healthy people I know and the plane thing happened to a few people ever.
Also do you turn it on while you are a passenger in a car or bus?
I also almost never use apps like dedicated banking apps or social media apps; instead, using Safari.
I know folks that don’t lock, and don’t use Face/Touch ID, because convenience (or paranoia).
I’m not sure that’s a good idea. We have our whole lives in these devices, and they could do a lot of damage.
There’s an old movie, called Taking Care of Business[0], where Jim Belushi finds Charles Grodin’s date planner, and takes over his life.
[0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taking_Care_of_Business_(fil...
Nearly every bank I know of recommends using apps over their website, since in general they're safer than using their websites. But I'm in The Netherlands and I don't know whether banking apps in different countries have the same security standards.
The security model for US banks is that it's illegal to do crimes to people's bank accounts. It doesn't involve "super secure apps", bank account numbers and credit card numbers are super insecure and there is little reason you should care about this insofar as you're not liable for leaking them.
But it's fun when you get your checking account drained, and it takes weeks to get it back.
I've seen that happen to a couple of folks.
That's also why I don't like to link my account to sites like PayPal and Venmo.
With a web browser, there's no way of doing that by design as the user has full control over their user agent, so you need to trust the end user is following good security practices and hasn't allowed their user agent to become compromised.
However, in the EU, banks are legally liable for financial loss caused by unauthorised transfers, so they are increasingly not willing to trust that the user hasn't just loaded their browser up with malicious extensions and malware.
Credit cards will give you the benefit of the doubt with a credit while they investigate. Banks (and credit unions) are going to be VERY hesitant to give you a 5-figure advance into a new checking out while they investigate how your account got drained when it initially looks like you did it. Even the most pro-customer policies practicable won't help when now all your automatic payments start failing. It's certainly a recipe for ruining your week and you'll likely spend the next month or two dealing with the fallout, and that's assuming you don't face crippling financial penalties because of it, which the majority of Americans would.
Social media and store loyalty apps are basically just PID harvesters.
In fact, I have a couple of solitaire games that are constantly nagging me to join leaderboards and take community challenges.
All my financial transactions are done with my Mac, which sits behind a fairly robust home network.
I know, for certain, that banking apps are the #1 first target, for hackers.
Even though some scum corps like Chase make it a PITA to manage my account from a desktop through firefox, that's the only way I'm going to interact with them.
"Download the app!"
Hard no!
In fact these are the only apps I think that appear regularly on my phone, but only when I'm traveling: AirBnB, Uber/Lyft, and whatever airline I'm currently flying on next. I think if I'm crossing borders I've installed whatever gov spyware makes TSA/Global Entry easier. They're already groping me hard, why not.
LA Fitness gets to stay because it's dumb and silent. I don't see anything else not security related. On mobile I talk to the outside world with K-9, firefox, signal, whatsapp, sms. I'm happy.
My fix was to create an entirely new profile, with no customization, no cookies restrictions, no add-ons, and use it only for financial sites.
I then exit my current FF, and switch to it, and back again.
All my issues vanished after doing that.
You could also create a different user in Linux, and isolate that way.
Hope it helps.
FWIW, you can also run multiple profiles simultaneously. They are independent processes, sharing no resources or permissions.
This is my model for difficult sites. If I'm really concerned, I use FF network config to allow access only to the domains I think are proper.
Although in the case of banking, I prefer to use the official mobile apps. Some are actually pretty good. Others are awful. But I trust the iOS app sandbox and I trust my banks.
I also block traffic at the network level, so if the bank app attempted something egregious (e.g. tracking via the basket of Internet deplorables), it would fail.
Of course this is actually "phone factor authentication" and not two-factor authentication, but I kinda need a bank account.
When I first run an app, and it asks for access to camera, microphone, photos, calendar, contacts, and location, I tend to immediately plonk it; regardless of its purpose.
I have a PMB, and the store has an app that uses the phone to unlock the door, after hours.
There is a keypad, but that hasn't actually worked, in months, and the store has ignored my reports.
I just go there, during business hours, even though it's inconvenient.
Basically the phone is the 2FA generator.
If they have access to the recovery email and your phone then they have the keys to the house anyway.
My phone has the fingerprint sensor. I don't use faceid.
I found someone’s Apple Watch that had no password. I could have done a ton of nefarious things if I’d been inclined. Had a different person picked it up, they might have had all their accounts hijacked.
I have a co worker who I won't ride with anymore simply because of that.
The same person who's super disciplined about seat belts likely takes other risks that another person would deem at least as serious.
Having an optional reminder feature is great; forcing it, not so much.
Doesn't take much FOD on the highway for your unbuckled body to slam into something and now you have a driverless vehicle. Also every else in your car should be bucked too so you're not bumping noggins.
Is this how far you're willing to go to boss other people around to fit your preferences?
Or is it just the job of the survivors or your bullshit to sue your estate into non-existence?
Avoiding a car crash in the first place would definitely be the better alternative.
Do you think of the 6 million police reported auto crashes in 2022 (in the US if you're not from here) that most if not all the people involved would have rather not been in an accident in the first place?
Most people don't expect a stranger to post photos of their phone's screen on the Internet either.
Being thoughtful is also important. I can think of no reason for anyone to share an innocent stranger's details on the Internet.
But sometimes that's not worth the hassle. E.g. I disabled locks while my car was running.
The tradeoff is IMHO well worth it as I immediately take the phone from the car should I leave. So the overall risk is minimal. Yet should it ever distract me then that's a big issue.
And not being reachable was also not an option given family circumstances at that time.
It's just a risk vs. benefit tradeoff. And that's a very personal judgment call.
I set mine to lock and auto-turn off after a short moment.
Nonetheless, I have found that the phone will sometimes get in a state or screen which prevents autolocking. It does this usually at the same state or screen but it's easy to trigger accidentally without noticing.
...just pull down the top bar. That might happen if you're holding your phone and it gets sucked out of your fingers. Or stolen right out of your hand.
On the third hand, including the name doesn't really add anything to the story/image.
Flying is one of the safest modes of transport. And we have FAA and stringent training / maintenance processes to thank.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motor_vehicle_fatality_rate_...
US has the highest death rate per million inhabitants. Even Russia is lower now.
~100 people die every day from car accidents.
If only car accidents were investigated with the rigor of flight accidents.
Now try explaining that to someone with a fear of flying.
People are terrible at assessing risk. Big, scary things like falling out the sky seem like bigger risks because they grab attention, no matter what the stats say.
Then all you need is to get really lucky and/or hit something relatively soft, like grass on some less-dense ground.
Hit the cement spinning, which spiderweb cracked one corner. Not content with that, it bounced, now spinning in the opposite direction from the impact, hit on the other corner, spiderweb crack.
Now the bottom third of my phone was shattered glass with shards sticking out. And I had to call my team, learn their eta. One a week-long five hundred mile cycling tour.
Sucked.
Add in factors of hitting soft ground (grass/brush) and having enough height to rotate into a flat profile instead of hitting a corner.
Now I kinda wanna read about an experiment where someone drops a few hundred phones and compares various models
The most astonishing thing to me is the destroyed charger cable.
Also a good reminder that it's a very good idea to have the screen lock after a set time — even if it's long.
> Imagine going to show someone a recent photo and something you didn't take pops up instead.
this is not true. The camera app opened from the lock screen just shows recent pictures taken with the camera opened from the lock screen. So if you lock the phone, then start the camera from the lock screen, there is no existing photos there.
One should not be able to modify the contents of a locked device but you can add photos on an iPhone. The recourse is to disable the Camera app via Screen Time and use a 3rd party camera app for when your phone is unlocked and you actually want to take photos. Unfortunately the flashlight functionality doesn't have such a workaround, but that one is more just a minor battery annoyance.
Oh, yeah, you're right, I definitely didn't read it that way.
Also, I can't really say I've ever had that specific problem, but I guess it makes sense for some people to want to protect themselves from that.
It's wild to me especially with how important the device itself and email the device has access to can be that someone in 2024 did not have a screen lock enabled.
I don’t know what the full paywalled article says, so they may say the same, but I don’t think that is very surprising.
The terminal velocity of a tumbling iPhone won’t be high (about 70km/hour, according to https://www.quora.com/Whats-the-terminal-velocity-of-a-falli...). It reaches that speed in a few seconds.
If, then, it drops on something that’s a bit forgiving, the deceleration won’t be excessive, and could easily be lower than that of dropping it on a hard concrete floor from a few meters high.
Sure this level of shock would have registered on its accelerometers, right?
How come it did not do the obvious right thing from a security perspective, which is to lock itself?
But judging by the downvotes there is something I am missing with this
Anyways is it the obvious thing to lock a phone merely because of a large jolt?
EDIT: per replies, this was entirely wrong, it was a domestic flight
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lanark_Highlands
No airport, so no planes from California Ontario to Ontario California
Neither does my iPhone. Unless cosmetic marks irritate you, they’re plenty durable without a case.
Because of remote work I am almost always close to my MBP, my Air, or a tablet. Car infotainment screens are good enough nowadays, and I don't need a giant screen to hail an Uber or paying something.
Giant screens are for me an habit I got when I used to commute hours everyday in a car or bus, it doesn't make too much sense nowadays if I really think about it.
1st generation SE had been discontinued long before the 2nd was released, but the 2nd was directly superseded by the 3rd, and you can still get the 3rd new, directly from Apple.
I find it impossible to hold the phone with one hand unless I add a cover.
Seriously, I have yet to find something better than polycarbonate for the phone body. It is durable, lightweight, can make removable covers, and let radio waves go though. So sure, it looks cheap, because it is cheap, which is great because it helps make for lower priced phones. And if you are going to put that phone in a case anyways, who cares about how it looks, you won't even see it.
Metal is nice too, I still prefer that cheap plastic, but at least, it is a durable material. But glass is just stupid.
Now I understand the premium feel. But why not go for fancy composites instead. Carbon fiber, graphene maybe. These are both premium and technically good.
Realistically I think it's because the way a phone gets damaged is highly dependent on:
- Is it in a case - Which orientation did it land in - What surface did it land on
Apple should seriously think about getting into the Aeroplane Manufacturing business; its there for their taking :-)
Clearly that hasn't been a high bar for a long time. :(
Sortition or other random promotion methods are actually the most theoretically correct afaik.
I recovered it (by using find my, thanks Apple) and it was intact.
Two days later it fell out of my pocket while sitting in my tourism european car (short) into the concrete of the road and the glass shattered.
So yeah, the elevation doesn't seem to matter as much as the terrain it hits and the angle.
If I had to guess - based on comparisons to energies cited for handgun bullets, less-lethal ammo, and punches - this could be fatal, but (given the relatively large size of the projectile) wouldn't be certain death.
There's also a chance of significantly more drag due to tumbling, which would likely put it into "most likely survivable but very, very painful" territory.
Awed it could resist 5000 meters freefall and still be operative 3 days later.
Confused as it did not lock for such a long time.
Dropping an iPhone out at 16,000ft is probably the same as throwing it off a tall building. I'd imagine a 3 or 4 storey building would be enough to reach terminal velocity.
I'm not gonna quibble about him changing his story, but it's notable.
The newer and older models with a metal band around the edges should be more resilient. I'm probably dropping phones with the same frequency [2], but the older ones with the metal were just fine(tm) when i stopped using them, just the metal band dented in places.
[1] I'd get it replaced but no way I'm paying Apple prices for this old phone, and the 3rd party repair shops warned me they may have to replace the whole display if the outer glass doesn't come off neatly and that will lead to iOS complaining it's not a genuine display onscreen.
[2] or maybe more often, since the rounded edges all glass design is easier to drop...
From the very short snippet I can read (paywall) I dont know if the phone landed in concrete or not.
Maybe you're thinking about an iPhone de-orbiting from ISS. That would be a different story.
Now if we were to launch the phone at several times the speed of sound we could probably get the same thing to happen but I'm doubtful that a phone could survive the acceleration in the first place.
The only time heating becomes an issue is at supersonic velocities and is due more to compression of the atmosphere against the object then actual friction.
Kelvin
In all seriousness, it can be down to -70 degrees Celsius.
I believe it's their PR plan.
... What exactly do you think they planned? The photos show a person's name on an email from an airline.
Are you suggesting they planted a fake phone on the side of a road, with a fake email from the airline about baggage for said airline open on the screen, and then had a hired stooge "find" the phone, and then either (a) make a false claim to the NTSB or (b) have a second stooge impersonate an NTSB officer on camera....?
Or perhaps it's more nefarious than that. Apple bribed a bunch of Boeing workers to be shit at their jobs for the last 24 months with the hopes that a panel would fail eventually; Concurrently they hired dozens upon dozens of stooges to take flights on routes using the previously-hobbled Boeing's, each of them carrying an iPhone in every pocket they have, so that when the inevitable happens they can make it rain iPhones, such that eventually some will land somewhere soft enough to survive the fall, and there will be enough of them that people will just find them on their morning walk...
Maybe the Android owners all got eaten by their respective polar bears so there isn't a story to push?
Apple is actually pretty good at this stuff.
They follow social media, reddit, etc all the time, and if there's an organic story that's good for their brand, they forward it to friendly journalists, provide context on background, etc.
If it's bad for their brand, they search all their internal systems using whatever information they can find and/or correlate, escalate it, and deal with it behind the scenes.
I have noticed that whenever I post truly unknown correct things I've learned at work that I get paid for knowing, I'm more likely to get voted to -2ish or even have people reply to say they don't believe me.
Though, if I reply to them and just restate the same thing in different words, that one always gets upvoted.
So I think people just like to see an argument.