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Otterbox fail.. phone shattered (pics)

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Kenjhee said:
How so? It's a very thin frame.

Image
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Lets for a second here pretend that the iPhone looks just like your above referenced picture; the frame itself. Now take the said frame outside and drop it from 4ft, heck even 10ft. Do you honest think that there's enough force from the drop to cause the steel band to bend?

I applaud you for thinking outside of the box, but common sense wins in this case.
 
zigzagg321 said:
It becomes quite structural when assembled, so your post with that picture of just the frame is aimed to skew.
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Plus the way it bent was in the frame's stronger axis.

Anyhow, I don't really care what happened or not its pretty crazy. I recently was a bit tipsy and dropped my iPhone off my balcony 14' onto my driveway. All that resulted was the back glass cracked (not shattered) and the metal has a couple slight scuffs. I replaced the back for $5 on amazon.com. I pretty much wrote it off after it hit the ground. Guess I lucked out!
 
Yes, of course I considered the rear plate is intact. But if you look closely there is just a slight amount of delamination at the point of the bend.

I understand that if you drop the frame alone, it is unlikely to encounter sufficient angular force to bend. But that's not what I said. I said what if there was broken glass still attached to the frame, providing enough mass to torque the frame.

I may be way off base, but what does it cost anyone to think outside the box here? I have no relationship with the OP or his "friend". I have at least 2 product designs based on frequency dynamics, one of which is currently successful financially. If I had listened to the "naysayers", I would have zero inventions. Again I don't claim to be the foremost expert, but I must know something.

Thank you to those willing to be open-minded. Peace all.
 
My first inclination when I read the OP's story was disbelief, but under the right conditions it is plausible.

If you think about it, the friend didn't simply drop the phone from four feet above ground. He dropped it while he was tripping. When you trip, your body jerks, kinda like a slingshot action. If you loose grip of an object while your body is undergoing that, it's going to fall four feet PLUS whatever velocity the trip caused as well, thus making the impact a bit more significant than if you were to just hold the phone up and drop it straight down.
 
If I ever screwup and get in serious trouble, and come up with an unbelievable story to get out of it, I want the last two posters on my jury. :D



Michael
 
charliex5 said:
Plus the way it bent was in the frame's stronger axis.

Anyhow, I don't really care what happened or not its pretty crazy. I recently was a bit tipsy and dropped my iPhone off my balcony 14' onto my driveway. All that resulted was the back glass cracked (not shattered) and the metal has a couple slight scuffs. I replaced the back for $5 on amazon.com. I pretty much wrote it off after it hit the ground. Guess I lucked out!
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Actually it would take a lot more force to bend it the other way. The long side is always the weaker one (which is why long bridges need reinforcements, tall buildings are more prone to earthquake damage than short ones, and why it's easier to break a long piece of chalk than a small one)

Vesian said:
My first inclination when I read the OP's story was disbelief, but under the right conditions it is plausible.

If you think about it, the friend didn't simply drop the phone from four feet above ground. He dropped it while he was tripping. When you trip, your body jerks, kinda like a slingshot action. If you loose grip of an object while your body is undergoing that, it's going to fall four feet PLUS whatever velocity the trip caused as well, thus making the impact a bit more significant than if you were to just hold the phone up and drop it straight down.
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That's still... unlikely. It would probably take something more along the lines of being hit with a baseball bat at full speed to bend the phone like that. Most likely explanation (assuming the story is true) is that the phone was bent before hand and caused the glass to be under a ton of stress, which then caused it to shatter so... catastrophically.

Kenjhee said:
Yes, of course I considered the rear plate is intact. But if you look closely there is just a slight amount of delamination at the point of the bend.

I understand that if you drop the frame alone, it is unlikely to encounter sufficient angular force to bend. But that's not what I said. I said what if there was broken glass still attached to the frame, providing enough mass to torque the frame.

I may be way off base, but what does it cost anyone to think outside the box here? I have no relationship with the OP or his "friend". I have at least 2 product designs based on frequency dynamics, one of which is currently successful financially. If I had listened to the "naysayers", I would have zero inventions. Again I don't claim to be the foremost expert, but I must know something.

Thank you to those willing to be open-minded. Peace all.
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How would broken glass exert any torque across the frame? None of those shards are long enough to create any real leverage. If the frame bent that easily, then simply death-gripping your phone would bend it, since the in-tact pieces of glass can exert a lot more torque about the edges of the frame. Realistically, the glass would shatter before causing any real deformations in the frame.
 
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terraphantm said:
Actually it would take a lot more force to bend it the other way. The long side is always the weaker one (which is why long bridges need reinforcements, tall buildings are more prone to earthquake damage than short ones, and why it's easier to break a long piece of chalk than a small one)



That's still... unlikely. It would probably take something more along the lines of being hit with a baseball bat at full speed to bend the phone like that. Most likely explanation (assuming the story is true) is that the phone was bent before hand and caused the glass to be under a ton of stress, which then caused it to shatter so... catastrophically.


How would broken glass exert any torque across the frame? None of those shards are long enough to create any real leverage. If the frame bent that easily, then simply death-gripping your phone would bend it, since the in-tact pieces of glass can exert a lot more torque about the edges of the frame. Realistically, the glass would shatter before causing any real deformations in the frame.
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Well, that's what I'm saying. First the glass breaks, then the frame bends, not the other way 'round.

Supposed you had steel yardstick, and every six inches or so you firmly taped a a billiards ball. If you violently threw this contraption to a hard tiled floor, I think it wouldn't be too long before you saw the yardstick taking a mild but permanent bend. You've got heavy masses flying in slightly different directions, and the yardstick would retain a convenient history of the complex rebounding pattern by taking a bend.

Anyway, thank you for disagreeing with me without resorting to name-calling, etc.
 
Kenjhee said:
Well, that's what I'm saying. First the glass breaks, then the frame bends, not the other way 'round.

Supposed you had steel yardstick, and every six inches or so you firmly taped a a billiards ball. If you violently threw this contraption to a hard tiled floor, I think it wouldn't be too long before you saw the yardstick taking a mild but permanent bend. You've got heavy masses flying in slightly different directions, and the yardstick would retain a convenient history of the complex rebounding pattern by taking a bend.

Anyway, thank you for disagreeing with me without resorting to name-calling, etc.
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I'm pretty sure there isn't enough mass in an iPhone to generate sufficient force from a 4' drop and bend the steel frame (the phone an case together would only have approximately 2.1J of kinetic energy just before hitting the ground) and I can't see how the glass shattering would release enough energy to do it either

Apart from all that, You have to remember that the Otterbox itself adds a lot of rigidity when it's assembled, and you've also got shock absorbing silicon wrapped around the hard shell.
 
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Is it possible the frame got bent pulling the (damaged) unit from the Otterbox? I've never handled one, so couldn't really say.
 
Willyb26 said:
OP... Where are you?
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He's doing this:
tumblr_m28ralFkwS1r3tjwm.gif
 
I dropped my phone MORE than once from height above 1m (±4 feet) and nothing happened...

...The Antenna is bent! I can actually calculate what force is needed to do such harm and I say its way more than a 4 feet drop onto whatever.

I assume its run over by a fat ass :D

But more important - it still works :cool:
 
Kenjhee said:
Yes, of course I considered the rear plate is intact. But if you look closely there is just a slight amount of delamination at the point of the bend.

I understand that if you drop the frame alone, it is unlikely to encounter sufficient angular force to bend. But that's not what I said. I said what if there was broken glass still attached to the frame, providing enough mass to torque the frame.

I may be way off base, but what does it cost anyone to think outside the box here? I have no relationship with the OP or his "friend". I have at least 2 product designs based on frequency dynamics, one of which is currently successful financially. If I had listened to the "naysayers", I would have zero inventions. Again I don't claim to be the foremost expert, but I must know something.

Thank you to those willing to be open-minded. Peace all.
Click to expand...

Lets say all these things and events happened to somehow bend the frame.

I would just like to point out the amount of broken glass. I've been searching online last night and i could not find a single post of someone posting about a dropped phone (inside a case) that had the glass shatter like OP's friends phone did.

For the most part i was seeing rather large cracks, big spaces between the cracks. The OP's pictures looks like, as someone else said in this thread, looks like it was smashed with a baseball bat multiple times
 
sulpfiction said:
Cmon OP. there is NO WAY that the phone fell 4 feet, landed flat, and the frame bent like that. Just NO WAY physically possible for that to happen the way u explained it even if the phone was naked. Throw an otterbox on it and the story is even more ridiculous. There is no "sweet spot" that would cause damage like that from the innocent 4' trip and drop scenario u explain. You can swear up and down that that's what happened, but I'm telling you either ur friend is lying to you, or ur not telling the whole story.
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Agreed, the OP's story is just not believable.
 
I did it too!

I dropped my brand new, unused, fresh out of the box 4S (in an otterbox of course... gotta have a case...) onto a big pile of super soft pillows from 5 inches and not only did it shatter, bend, and pop but get this: IT BURST INTO FLAMES and killed 7 people! The horror!

Why is it that EVERYONE who breaks their phones always has an excuse?

Your friend broke his phone. It happens. It was probably in motion, onto concrete, without a case, and from a higher altitude, but who really cares? It was negligence.

Negligence = Penalties = $199 (or $50 if he bought AppleCare)...

Now save this reply for the NEXT person who drops their phone onto a memory foam mattress in low gravity and mysteriously shatters it to pieces. It doesn't matter how you were negligent. Accidents happen, and big boys and girls take RESPONSIBILITY...
 
Kenjhee said:
Well, that's what I'm saying. First the glass breaks, then the frame bends, not the other way 'round.
Click to expand...
There have been thousands, if not tens of thousands, of iPhones that have or had broken screens. And yes, most all were dropped--probably a lot more aggressively than the OP indicated about this iPhone.

If your theory was valid then there would be bent iPhones all over the place. There isn't, or at least people are not reporting about it--at least not in connection with broken screens. I would think that would be such a surprise there would be plenty of reports.

Indeed a cursory google search turned up a few bent iPhones. But, interestingly, they did NOT end up with broken screens.

So there is evidence to suggest an iPhone can certainly be bent with enough force, yet the glass survives. That is precisely what many have been saying happened in this case.

After reading about a few bent but not screen damaged iPhones I am convinced that was the case here: iPhone had been previously subjected to a much greater force than this 4' drop, bent, and then the 4' drop pushed it over the edge.

Now I personally don't think many people would not examine their iPhone after that first incident. So I still think the friend, if there was one, was not being completely truthful.




Michael
 
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