International Business Times:

A future iPhone could protect itself from falls by using the vibration motor to adjust its centre of gravity, meaning smashed screens may be a thing of the future-past.

A patent awarded to Apple by the US Patent and Trademark Office this week, describes a “protective mechanism for an electronic device” and calls on the iPhone’s processing power to recognise a fall, calculate the potential impact, and work at lightening speed to come up with a plan to save the fragile glass screen.

Once the phone’s speed of descent, time to impact and any degrees of spin have been calculated using the accelerometer and gyroscope already fitted to current iPhones, the system then calls on the vibration motor to fire, which shifts the handset’s centre of gravity, countering the spin and ensuring it lands screen-up.

Fantastic. Like a cat!