OK...How Did Your iPhone Shatter?

In My Humble Opinion
1

Back at July 4th, the family attended a BBQ with no kids. My 10 yr old son brought his Kindle to keep himself occupied. Next thing we knew, the glass shattered. He swore he didn’t drop it, but there was a telltale point of impact. He’s not always truthful, so it is hard to give him the benefit of the doubt in this case (like, some weird thermal stress fracture shattered the glass instead?)

Fast forward to today. I’ve dropped my phone many times on hard surfaces and it survives. It is placed within a cheap shell, not an Otterbox. (I had an Otterbox, but over time they fall apart and I cannot get one for my older iPhone without spending a fortune on eBay.) Anyway, I must have just dropped my phone. I mean, I think i did. It’s such a natural thing to pick it up, I didn’t even think about it. I dropped it on thin carpeting in the office. Anyway, the next thing I know, the glass has shattered!

Is it possible for the glass to shatter moments AFTER impact? Perhaps it is merely my perspective. I’m sure when I dropped it this time I had no cause for alarm and probably didn’t check it’s condition immediately. Perhaps this is what my son experienced causing him to believe he had no clue how his Kindle shattered.

To those with broken glass iPhones, are there some of you out there with absolutely no recollection of how it broke?

2

It is possible for the glass to sustain near-catastrophic damage but not actually break until some later event (which might be very very light, like brushing against the keys in your pocket).

It’s also possible to break glass with relatively little force, if it hits just right.

I haven’t had this happen with a phone, but I had a corningware bowl (strong stuff!) break after lightly touching it with a spoon as I was eating out of it.

The point of impact is where the break starts, but it doesn’t have to be a point that receives a lot of force.

Of course, what probably happened is that your son dropped it and lied about it, because he wanted to deflect blame for breaking it. But he could be telling the truth.