So there you are, among the first in line at the Apple Store in Palo Alto to buy the hottest new phone that everyone is talking about, the Apple iPhone. It’s June 29th, 2007 and as you exit the store with your treasure in hand, you are immediately inundated by the media and others who just want a quick glance at the “magical” device. As we get to the one-minute mark on the video, we see a bearded gentleman wearing a blue shirt and a smile that runs from Palo Alto to New York City.
In his hand is the box containing one of the first iPhone units to get rung up at the Palo Alto Apple Store. The unnamed gentleman takes the phone out of the box to show it off to the crowd that gathered. Meanwhile, the phone owner starts talking about the durability of Apple products when he decides to perform a drop test egged on by the woman standing next to him. “I could trust a pocket fall,” says this woman who might have been jealous enough to gaslight this guy into performing an ill-advised drop test.
If you’re any kind of phone enthusiast at all, you probably were cringing from the moment the grip on the iPhone was relaxed to the moment it hit the pavement. But one fall wasn’t enough for the woman who seemingly talked this poor guy into dropping the phone again, this time from his shirt pocket. This time, it landed face-first squarely on the glass. Showing off the shattered display, the iPhone owner says, “This is what happens when you drop your iPhone from about six feet flat on its screen.” Toward the end of the video, the late Steve Jobs makes an appearance as he visits Apple’s Palo Alto retail location.
It’s hard to determine whether this was the very first iPhone drop test done on purpose or whether this guy was trying to impress Miss Motormouth next to him by dropping his brand-new device.
With improvements made to iPhone displays over the years and cases that claim to protect current models from drops measuring as much as 21.3 feet, feeling your iPhone slip out of your hand might not be the scary moment that it used to be.
