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bad apple

Your iPhone Might Be Getting a Parachute

27 Sep 2011, Berlin, Germany --- A broken and inoperable mobile phone lays on the ground in Berlin,†Germany, 27†September 2011. Photo: Peer Grimm --- Image by © Peer Grimm/dpa/Corbis This will never happen again.

To the delight of chronic phone-droppers and drunks everywhere, Apple Insider reports that Apple has taken out a patent on a "Protective Mechanism for an Electronic Device," which might use parachute-like "air foils" to keep your phone from smashing into the ground when dropped. The patent filing also includes the possibility of "a gas canister" that "is used as thrust to counter gravitational acceleration," meaning that every iPhone might one day come with an individual jet pack to keep it aloft. Those Apple guys, they think of everything.

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Photo: Peer Grimm/dpa/Corbis