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iPhone that fell from hole in Alaska 737 MAX flight is found, still open to Mail

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Re: iPhone that fell from hole in Alaska 737 MAX flight is found, still open to Mail

#171

Post by bmitc »

tgsovlerkhgsel wrote: post #168
xivzgrev wrote: post #113

This isn’t surprising - there was a wired story about phones surviving from planes back in 2011 (1) 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 o…

> the phone itself is fragile Modern electronics are quite the opposite of fragile, I'd say.

It's not a huge leap of faith to assume they mean the phone as in the thing covered in glass and fragile touchscreen.

Re: iPhone that fell from hole in Alaska 737 MAX flight is found, still open to Mail

#172

Post by Apocryphon »

Not to accidentally trigger the 9/11 truthers (it's been too long for them to be around, yeah?) but this reminds me how several of the hijackers' passports were discovered near the various crash sites

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PENTTBOM#Passports_recovered

Re: iPhone that fell from hole in Alaska 737 MAX flight is found, still open to Mail

#174

Post by addandsubtract »

imgabe wrote: post #163
neilv wrote: post #91

I would've preferred that the identifying information of the person had been edited out. 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 redacti…

It's crazy to me that the phone hasn't locked automatically. Do people really walk around with their phones set to never lock and turn the screen off? Mine times out after 5 minutes.

The tweet said there was a broken off charging plug still in the phone. Maybe that kept it unlocked?

Re: iPhone that fell from hole in Alaska 737 MAX flight is found, still open to Mail

#175

Post by omeid2 »

hobs wrote: post #111
dannyw wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not sure why you're being downvoted, but this is absolutely common corporate PR 101 practice. 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…

I say this from direct corporate experience working directly with Apple, so I don't mind the downvotes, just people who have no idea what's going on.

If you ever think downvotes means anything, remember that any criticism of pornography or a simple fact of saying "C is unsafe" gets downvoted into oblivion here.

Re: iPhone that fell from hole in Alaska 737 MAX flight is found, still open to Mail

#176

Post by tgsovlerkhgsel »

earth2mars wrote: post #89

What if it fell on someone's head? Would they have survived?

Really hard to tell for sure, but assuming it orients itself aerodynamically, exposing a 75x10mm surface area to the wind, with a drag coefficient of 1.0 (slightly less than a cube) and a mass of 180g, then omnicalc says it'd be moving at 225 km/h (62.5 m/s), giving a kinetic energy of 352 Joule.

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.

Re: iPhone that fell from hole in Alaska 737 MAX flight is found, still open to Mail

#177

Post by nottorp »

speedgoose wrote: post #139
MrOxiMoron wrote: post #135

this raises the question; what do people do with their iPhones to crack the screen? terminal velocity is not enough speed it seems.

They drop it on harder surfaces than grass on mud or hit corners of furnitures with the phone in the pocket for example. I tend to do that.

If you have one of the idiotic models where the glass extends to the side, you just need to drop it on a hard surface. My iPhone XS is cracked now starting from two opposite corners. Funny enough, the touch screen still works perfectly, it's just the outer layer of glass that's gone so I plan to keep it 1-2 more years. [1]

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...

Re: iPhone that fell from hole in Alaska 737 MAX flight is found, still open to Mail

#178

Post by herewulf »

btilly wrote: post #27
makeitdouble wrote: post #15

Seems to have landed on soft terrain, which makes a world of difference. The bit of charging cable ripped at the bottom still tells how harsh the journey was before the landing.

I have a story about that, from the movie producer Fred Zinneman. 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 bro…

Nitpick: The parachute likely opened _partially_ (as is common for such malfunctions) so that impacting a tree wouldn't cause injury or death.

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.

Re: iPhone that fell from hole in Alaska 737 MAX flight is found, still open to Mail

#179

Post by tgsovlerkhgsel »

bmitc wrote: post #171
tgsovlerkhgsel wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the phone itself is fragile Modern electronics are quite the opposite of fragile, I'd say.

It's not a huge leap of faith to assume they mean the phone as in the thing covered in glass and fragile touchscreen.

Even the screen with its tempered glass isn't as fragile as it might look.

Re: iPhone that fell from hole in Alaska 737 MAX flight is found, still open to Mail

#180

Post by paulddraper »

xivzgrev wrote: post #113

This isn’t surprising - there was a wired story about phones surviving from planes back in 2011 (1) 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 o…

Then why does my phone break when I drop it?
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