Real flubber iPhone cases will save your iPhone from death and destruction

by John Biggs on August 31, 2009

Tech21 is a case manufacturer with a fairly unique product. It’s basically a sort of state-changing material that can take impact much like Silly Putty. When it hits a hard surface it goes completely stiff, takes the impact, and releases it without damaging the device inside.

This video from Recombu is pretty amazing and it’s fun to watch the British man hit his British friend with a hammer.

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Comments

Matt H - August 31st, 2009 at 4:23 pm GMT+5

will it also save my iphone from using apps in the background?

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Joshua - August 31st, 2009 at 4:30 pm GMT+5

Well, the fact that it has no moving parts helps I’m sure. But its nice to know that it will protect from breakage, even though aside from the screen that’s pretty minimal, so…

I don’t really see a use for this product. Cases aren’t bought to protect from breakage, they’re bought to protect against scratches and that kind of stuff. These things don’t break under any kind of normal circumstance except for the screen, which this doesn’t really make much of a difference in.

Maybe for the iPhone though? Don’t they use plastic instead of metal? This might be more useful there. Although I would still like to see some kind of backing on this thing so I don’t have to go out and buy a vinyl protector for both the front AND back.

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- Joshua - August 31st, 2009 at 4:33 pm GMT+5
  
  Summary: Cases are bought to protect against scratches, not breakage as the Touch is already a pretty solid/reliable product. The iPhone may be a different story, but even so, it still needs a backing as the primary function of a case is protection against scratches.
  
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  - Ryan Walker - September 2nd, 2009 at 4:10 pm GMT+5
    
    The impact from dropping an iPod Touch or an iPhone can crack the glass screen when landing on its corner, edge, or face. Different cases provide different levels of protection against this type of breakage.
    
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weatherman - August 31st, 2009 at 4:58 pm GMT+5

This seems like it would be pretty useful to me. It looks like it’s a fairly unobtrusive design, doesn’t add much weight or bulk, but definitely protects against significant drops.

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ddub - August 31st, 2009 at 5:20 pm GMT+5

fine but if it has a hard drive in it any shaking and drastic stops will risk eventually breaking the drives inside.

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- Ryan Walker - September 2nd, 2009 at 4:07 pm GMT+5
  
  @ddub
  
  iPhones, iPod Touch, and iPod Nanos have solid state disks in them. No moving parts at all.
  
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swissfreek - August 31st, 2009 at 5:37 pm GMT+5

I’m pretty sure there’s some high-speed folks working on body armor that uses the same material technology. I forget what the scientific name for this stuff is. Something like “non-Newtonian fluid”. Yeah, that sounds sciency enough. Basically, stuff that doesn’t follow the rules of physics for phase changes and such.

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- Jarett - August 31st, 2009 at 9:01 pm GMT+5
  
  Mix some corn starch with equal parts water to see it in action. Fun stuff.
  
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Paul Chapman - September 1st, 2009 at 4:38 am GMT+5

Can they make planes out of this stuff?

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