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Would be interesting to know the difference between a snatch and me rushing out the door...

Probably the acceleration vector. If the phone is rapidly moved a meter away from you, either it's being snatched or it's being thrown.

Edit: To clarify, I was thinking of horizontally, in the direction that corresponds to the top of the screen, as if you were bent over using the phone--probably holding the bottom-of-screen--and then someone grabbed the top-of-screen to pull it away.

> If the phone is rapidly moved a meter away from you, either it's being snatched or it's being thrown.

Good heuristics. Also that must not be a mainly downward rapid movement, which probably only means you just dropped your phone.

I think a lot of the false-positive cases where the screen gets locked are acceptable in context.

I mean, most people dropping their phone will be too glad/devastated that the device did/didn't escape harm to bother being annoyed that they have to unlock the screen again.

A drop registers as no acceleration while in freefall, and then a sharp spike when it hits the ground. This was counter-intuitive to me when I first figured out how to display my phone's accelerometer readouts, but makes sense.

Do you often interact with your phone via the screen while rushing out the door?

Yes?

Yes. Often the map or messaging app.

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