Apple patents active fall protection system that shifts iPhones in midair

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  • Reply 21 of 48
    mobiusmobius Posts: 380member

    I think they should fit all future iPhones with Airbags that deploy just before impact.

     

    Possibly a parachute or two just for extra protection. :D

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  • Reply 22 of 48
    MacPromacpro Posts: 19,873member
    cjcampbell wrote: »

    If an object will not fall faster on the heavy side, then Apple's shifting weight mechanism wouldn't work, would it? And Spaceship 1 and badminton birdies won't fall nose first. Maybe someone needs to go back to their high school physics book and realize that we don't use iPhones in a vacuum.

    An object won't fall faster on the heavier side, correct. I suspect you are talking about air/vacuum with regard to air resistance in your examples. Center of gravity/mass change on the other hand has effect on rotation, for example, in a vacuum or an atmosphere.
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  • Reply 23 of 48

    It's a conspiracy so they can reverse engineer it and make your screens break so you have to buy new ones.

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  • Reply 24 of 48
    iaeeniaeen Posts: 588member
    cjcampbell wrote: »

    If an object will not fall faster on the heavy side, then Apple's shifting weight mechanism wouldn't work, would it? And Spaceship 1 and badminton birdies won't fall nose first. Maybe someone needs to go back to their high school physics book and realize that we don't use iPhones in a vacuum.

    Apple's invention has nothing to do with causing one side to fall faster. It uses conservation of momentum to spin the device by spinning a small mass in the opposite direction.
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  • Reply 25 of 48
    MacPromacpro Posts: 19,873member
    mobius wrote: »
    I think they should fit all future iPhones with Airbags that deploy just before impact.

    Possibly a parachute or two just for extra protection. :D

    I bet a mini airbag would be the easiest solution of all ... but being Apple I vote for TheWhite falcons's idea of hovering :D
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  • Reply 26 of 48
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by cjcampbell View Post

     

    Uh, they could achieve the same thing by weighting the side they want it to land on. No motor, no computers, etc.


     

    Brilliant! To think you came up with that idea on your own, without having an R&D budget of billions of dollars!

     

    You must be a genius. Be sure to patent that idea right away.

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  • Reply 27 of 48
    maltzmaltz Posts: 551member
    Quote:

    Originally Posted by cjcampbell View Post

     



    If an object will not fall faster on the heavy side, then Apple's shifting weight mechanism wouldn't work, would it? And Spaceship 1 and badminton birdies won't fall nose first. Maybe someone needs to go back to their high school physics book and realize that we don't use iPhones in a vacuum.




    Birdies (and Spaceship 1) fall nose-first because of their aerodynamic design, not because of the heavy nose.  If you dropped a birdie on the moon, it wouldn't fall in any particular orientation.  The shifting/spinning weight inside the phone would rotate the phone via conservation of momentum and angular momentum.

     

    This can be easily tested.  Tape a couple of metal washers to the back of a relatively light and thin, but firm object (probably best not to use an actual phone - maybe an empty iPhone hardshell case?) and try to drop it on its face.  I'll bet you'll have no difficulty doing so.

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  • Reply 28 of 48
    Quote:

    Originally Posted by cnocbui View Post

     

    Too heavy.  It wont be implemented.  Mass is mass.




    make the mechanism mass a battery.  Trade static for dynamic.  make the phone a couple mills thicker (I'm scared to buy a iPhone 6 because I think it's too skinny) to allow for empty spaces be filled with mass

     

    The other part of this is could be to give tactile feedback as you play games (as you pitch a car into a curve, you feel the weight shift in your hand like the steering wheel being pulled to one side).

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  • Reply 29 of 48
    Quote:

    Originally Posted by iaeen View Post





    Apple's invention has nothing to do with causing one side to fall faster. It uses conservation of momentum to spin the device by spinning a small mass in the opposite direction.



    a bit more complicated, but it's more of increasing the moment of inertia.  if you're spinning, you can speed up/slow down the spin by extending mass 

     

    My issue is knowing where the ground is.  you can't stop a rotation , you can just slow it down or speed it up so you can 'stick' the landing.

     

    the next patent will be for ultrasonic spatial detection (terrain following sonar). 

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  • Reply 30 of 48
    iaeeniaeen Posts: 588member
    Quote:

    Originally Posted by TheOtherGeoff View Post

     



    a bit more complicated, but it's more of increasing the moment of inertia.  if you're spinning, you can speed up/slow down the spin by extending mass 

     

    My issue is knowing where the ground is.  you can't stop a rotation , you can just slow it down or speed it up so you can 'stick' the landing.

     

    the next patent will be for ultrasonic spatial detection (terrain following sonar). 




    The bulk of the article (and the first picture) talk about using a rotor. I think the idea is to use the vibrational motor to achieve this effect.

     

    I would think that trying to change the moment of inertia (or for that matter trying to produce a net moment by adding mass to one side, as others have suggested) would require too much extra mass to be practical. At least with a rotor, you can compensate for lightness with rotational speed.

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  • Reply 31 of 48
    Quote:

    Originally Posted by cjcampbell View Post

     

    Uh, they could achieve the same thing by weighting the side they want it to land on. No motor, no computers, etc.

     


    Your solution depends on air resistance. A phone dropped from your pocket or a table top would hit the floor in half a second at less than 10mph. That's too soon and too slow for aerodynamics to have any effect on an object as dense as an iPhone. Try flicking a badminton shuttlecock off a table as a first test of your theory.

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  • Reply 32 of 48
    It's always fun to watch the haters hate, no matter what Apple does.
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  • Reply 33 of 48
    foggyhillfoggyhill Posts: 4,767member
    Quote:

    Originally Posted by EricTheHalfBee View Post





    Another useless comment. Is insurance there to make us bad drivers? Are warranties there to cover poor manufacturing? Nobody ever has an accident?

    Guess you haven't seen the App Cycloramic, which uses the vibration motor to rotate your iPhone while on a table top to take 360 degree pictures. Without the friction of the iPhone resting on a surface (free fall) it could rotate even faster.

    Someone should go back and look at their high school physics text. An object won't fall faster on the heavy side.

     

     

    While the phone's as a whole wouldn't fall faster (its center of mass), a shift in weight in the phone does have a impact on how fast some parts fall in regards to the ground. Since your modifying the spin around the center of mass. Shifting weight away from the center would slow its rotation, while pulling it back would accelerate it, like a skater mid air. They spin horizontally, but you can also spin sideways :-).

     

    What they're talking about here is basically using a flywheel, your compensating the low mass through high speed to move/modify the overall system's orientation. They're used in spaceship; fascinating stuff really.

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  • Reply 34 of 48
    muppetrymuppetry Posts: 3,331member
    iaeen wrote: »
    muppetry wrote: »
    Interesting concept that I recall being discussed a year or two back. The issue with modifying angular momentum during a fall remains the need to know the exact height of the phone above the impact surface. That is the single, critical unknown. Without an ultrasonic method - mentioned as a more advanced enhancement - or something equivalent, it's hard to see how this can work.

    How exact do you think it needs to be?

    I wouldn't be surprised if the overwhelming majority of drops are from roughly the same hight (say, 3-5 feet). Apple could design this distance into the mechanism, and it would still be effective in most cases.

    Quite exact, the way I was envisaging it, which was to adjust the rotation rate so that at impact, it is oriented as needed.

    But it occurs to me that they may do something rather different, especially since many dropped phones likely don't have much angular velocity to start with. Rigid-body rotations are stable about the two principle axes with the greatest and least moments of inertia, so two internal rotation systems, in principle, would be adequate to achieve any given impact orientation, independent of drop height (above a trivial minimum), by flipping the phone to that orientation and then neutralizing all rotation. It would complete the fall without spin.
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  • Reply 35 of 48
    Quote:

    Originally Posted by EricTheHalfBee View Post

    Quote:

    Originally Posted by cjcampbell View Post



    Uh, they could achieve the same thing by weighting the side they want it to land on.


    Someone should go back and look at their high school physics text. An object won't fall faster on the heavy side.

     

    I hate to pile on but, @cjcampbell this is not something new. Does the hammer and feather experiment ring a bell -- think Apollo 15 (here if before your time).

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  • Reply 36 of 48
    asciiascii Posts: 5,936member
    Quote:

    Originally Posted by TheWhiteFalcon View Post

     

     

    It'd be better if it just stopped and hovered mid-air.


    Now there's an engineering challenge!

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  • Reply 37 of 48
    Quote:

    Originally Posted by EricTheHalfBee View Post

     
    Quote:

    Originally Posted by Benjamin Frost View Post



    A patent for clumsiness. I guess Apple wants us all to become clumsy.


    Another useless comment. Is insurance there to make us bad drivers? Are warranties there to cover poor manufacturing? Nobody ever has an accident?

     

     

    Warranties are almost always a waste of money; the same with insurance.

     

    Thanks for proving my point.

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  • Reply 38 of 48
    Quote:

    Originally Posted by ascii View Post

     

    This would really mess with those YouTube drop testers. Try as they might to drop it on it's screen, the darn thing just never does. 

     

    The coolest thing would be if mini retro-rockets came out and it repulsively landed :)


     

    I predict a three-hop landing to a shady place.

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  • Reply 39 of 48
    Quote:

    Originally Posted by Benjamin Frost View Post

     
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by EricTheHalfBee View Post

     
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Benjamin Frost View Post



    A patent for clumsiness. I guess Apple wants us all to become clumsy.


    Another useless comment. Is insurance there to make us bad drivers? Are warranties there to cover poor manufacturing? Nobody ever has an accident?

     

     

    Warranties are almost always a waste of money; the same with insurance.

     

    Thanks for proving my point.




    it didn't prove your point because you didn't have one... but your idiotic post earned you a permanent place on my ignore list.

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  • Reply 40 of 48
    ascii wrote: »
    This would really mess with those YouTube drop testers. Try as they might to drop it on it's screen, the darn thing just never does. 

    The coolest thing would be if mini retro-rockets came out and it repulsively landed :)
    No, two weird.
    muppetry wrote: »
    Interesting concept that I recall being discussed a year or two back. The issue with modifying angular momentum during a fall remains the need to know the exact height of the phone above the impact surface. That is the single, critical unknown. Without an ultrasonic method - mentioned as a more advanced enhancement - or something equivalent, it's hard to see how this can work.
    There's already a proximity sensor, and 2 cameras, they could be used.
    mobius wrote: »
    I think they should fit all future iPhones with Airbags that deploy just before impact.

    Possibly a parachute or two just for extra protection. :D
    not the Iairbag runout again.

    What is interesting is this is a mostly software change. Vibrator might be modified, already got accelometer/gyroscope. What more is needed.
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