The entire thing fell out of plane (phone + charging cable plugged), then landed in a tree, where the charging cable got tangled in branches and that's when phone broke out of it and fell in grass.
So phone was able to release kinetic energy in 2 big events (+a few branches hit maybe), not a direct splash on the ground.
Wonder if somehow they can analyze the accelerometer data of the phone and figure out if that correlates with that scenario.
In skydiving, it isn't unheard of for someone to have their phone fall out of their pocket and survive impact without the screen shattering. That's from ~13000ft, but once the phone reaches terminal velocity, it's all the same impact force regardless of altitude.
I think dirt/grass is just a lot softer than the things we usually drop our phones over, like concrete or tile.
I'm surprised it didn't break past the strain relief. Everyone with an iPhone has a handful of charging cables that end up like [1]. That's where they tend to fail first.
I’ve never had a cable break like that. Many people just don’t know how to handle cables and treat them like rope without any knowledge of bend radius, internal wire twists, etc. (and don’t care if they crush them).
The entire thing fell out of plane (phone + charging cable plugged), then landed in a tree, where the charging cable got tangled in branches and that's when phone broke out of it and fell in grass.
So phone was able to release kinetic energy in 2 big events (+a few branches hit maybe), not a direct splash on the ground.
Wonder if somehow they can analyze the accelerometer data of the phone and figure out if that correlates with that scenario.