Sleeved iPad survives 500-foot drop

Just because one iPhone 4 survives an accidental thousand-foot drop from an airplane without a scratch doesn't mean people should be throwing Apple devices out of flying vehicles just to test how durable they can be in different covers, but that's exactly what one company decided to do with an iPad.

G-Form, which specializes in protective gear for athletes, is now getting into protecting gadgets and showing how its "soft and floppy" materials can adapt to the roughest, most implausible scenarios for an electronic device's accidental demise. 

Check out this video that shows them taking an iPad (not clear which version) up into an ultralight aircraft and then dropping it from 500 feet. As you can see, it appears unscathed and functional as the enthusiastic spokesman Thom Cafaro takes it out of the G-Form iPad Extreme Sleeve. (Kids — and adults — don't do this the next time you're up in the air, in any aircraft.)

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G-Form also attached a helmet-cam to its iPad case to film its fall, but the helmet-cam didn't do as well as its protected subject. 

For Subscribers

FOR SUBSCRIBERSAmerican passenger drafted goodbye texts to her family as Flydubai plane plummeted

FOR SUBSCRIBERSCornell rape allegation pushes embattled New York prosecutor into national spotlight

FOR SUBSCRIBERSAbdul El-Sayed tries to woo MAHA voters as Democrats seek inroads with RFK’s supporters

FOR SUBSCRIBERSKratom-like substances are popping up in a typically benign supplement

FOR SUBSCRIBERSGOP super PAC increases its spending for Sen. Jon Husted in tough Ohio race

FOR SUBSCRIBERSRecords reveal tumultuous marriage between slain New York Times executive and wife

FOR SUBSCRIBERSFrom clean energy warrior to ‘wall of shame,’ James Talarico reverses on a fossil fuel money pledge

FOR SUBSCRIBERSCongressional staff planned official trip with luxury stops in Italy and France weeks before election

FOR SUBSCRIBERSA harrowing ordeal aboard an Israel-bound plane

FOR SUBSCRIBERSOpenAI CEO Sam Altman to skip congressional hearing on rogue AI agents

FOR SUBSCRIBERSKey DOJ lawyers departed Trump ‘grand conspiracy’ probe amid pressure to produce, source says

FOR SUBSCRIBERSTrump’s new AI chatbot often links to a site launched under Clinton 26 years ago

FOR SUBSCRIBERSAt MAHA summit, industry CEOs the movement once vilified take the stage

FOR SUBSCRIBERSThis Paralympian has two goals: Win medals and give away $500,000 to her teammates

FOR SUBSCRIBERSCornell rape allegation spotlights stringent New York state laws that have long drawn criticism

It's not the first time G-Form has tortured an innocent iPad. Here's a video demo of a three-foot drop of an 8-pound bowling ball on a sleeved iPad. Again, it remains intact (unless there was some David Blaine slight-of-hand we're unaware of, or some editing going on). Then they upped that demo to a 12-pound bowling ball drop on the iPad, first on one enclosed in a hard case, then in a G-Form sleeve. Guess what happens? Big crack in the hard case, nothing in the G-Form iPad. But it still didn't ease the pain of seeing such a needless sacrifice, especially for those of us who don't have an iPad!

More stories:

• iPhone drops 1,000 feet and doesn't drop one call afterward
• College student tracks down his stolen iPad
• Tablet elimination: Only the best survive

Check out Technolog on Facebook, and on Twitter, follow Athima Chansanchai, who will cherish her iPad 2 and not drop it off any cliffs or airplanes, when and if she finally gets one.