Because there isn't much difference in the force between a 1m and a 8000m drop due to the above. So it really comes down to case, angle, and material onto which it was dropped with corners being more vulnerable.

There is. Dropping your phone follows a curve, it falling from 16,000ft it does not. There are more forces at play when you fumble your phone. They aren't necessarily stronger forces though...just more of them. Trajectory and spinning add different forces on top of gravity. There is also the catch attempt that invariably forces the phone down harder and changes the trajectory.

Surface, angle of contact, luck.

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.

Yeah. I’ve dropped my phone though rarely hard. A few months ago I was hiking with the phone in my pocket and some sort of impact (there was a lot of scrambling over rock) caved in the phone from the back through the case and completely destroyed it.

Low LUCK attribute.

Guess they chose a different feat then. Or took the +2 ability bump instead of a feat.

because you’re dropping it on tiles or pavement which are a lot less squishy than the grass it landed on

It didn't have time to turn around and stretch in order to slow itself down.

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.

No protection? I drop mine from time to time and never experienced any damage

I drop my iPhone 12 mini on the daily onto marble floor, asphalt and concrete .. sometimes it flings out of my hands with an arc to it. Slippery little thing, it is.

Only the edges are a bit scratched up.

I am pretty sure ALL phones that are on sale today have better glass than my Nexus 4 which had a beautiful glass panel on its back. Gorgeous but not strong at all.

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/8a/LG_Nexus...

That's just some luck.

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.

you're holding it wrong

Does it? I have had a caseless iPhone for years, I drop it on hard surfaces a few times a week, and it’s fine except for a few scratches on the edges.