I messed up Saturday and managed to get my phone run over by a Jeep, but it’s just fine thanks to the tempered glass screen protector.
Some film photography friends from Twitter and I met up to chat, drink coffee and shoot film yesterday, and I had a minor disaster. It started when I set my iPhone 6 on the dashboard of my car before getting in — I didn’t want to leave it in my pocket and have it bend. I intended to transfer it to a safer place once I sat down.
I forgot.
As we pulled out of a parking lot to caravan from the coffee shop to our shoot location, the phone slid across the dashboard in extreme slow motion. It was almost bullet time for me as I watched my iPhone slip free from contact with the car, inertia overcoming gravity and friction, the phone tumbling through air as my futile grab for it fell short.
The phone tumbled across the pavement of North Washington Street in north Denver and right into the path of the car behind me in the caravan. Craig Pindell’s bright orange Jeep trundled right over the phone with both tires.
I honked and waved my arms and slammed the brakes in time to keep more cars from rolling over the phone, but the damage was done. I jumped out, dodging traffic as I ran around behind Craig’s Jeep to retrieve whatever was left of my phone.
The phone was face-down on the pavement with big, dusty tire tracks across the back of the case. My heart sunk when I saw the tracks, but even before that I was fairly certain the fall alone would’ve shattered the screen.
I picked up the phone and waved it to the other cars in the caravan by way of explanation for my emergency stop and dive into traffic. I tossed the phone on the passenger’s seat, a little more carelessly than I would have if I weren’t sure it was destroyed, and hopped in.
As a result of the interruption, I wound up at the head of the caravan and needed to navigate. I already had the route set in the Google Maps app and realized I needed it. I picked up the battered phone and prayed it would at least work until I could get it replaced — my iPhone 5 worked fine with a shattered screen for more than half a year.
Sure enough, the iPhone 6 woke up like nothing had happened. A bit of the weight lifted off my heart with that, but as I tried to operate the phone without cutting myself on the shattered glass, I was still a bit down.
As we arrived at the shoot location, though, another thought struck me. I examined the screen closely and realized that none of the breaks I could see extended to the edge of the glass — they stopped at the edge of the screen protector.
I didn’t pay any attention to the screen protector when I bought it, really. When I got the phone I had just asked for whatever glass protector the store had in stock and installed it without even reading the box.
But when we got out of the cars I asked Craig to take a picture of my phone with his, because I suspected — hoped — I might be about to see a minor miracle.
Sure enough, as I peeled back the destroyed screen protector I discovered that I was luckier than I can remember having been in a long time. The screen was undamaged. Not just that, it was still pristine — not so much as a scuff.
The protector peeled off with a couple more minor cracks, and the shattered bits had some sharp edges, but the whole thing stayed together in one piece just like the laminated glass in a car’s windshield. Peeling it back wasn’t easy, either — the stickum on the back wasn’t eager to let go at all. Despite its tenacity, the adhesive left nothing behind on the screen at all.
Color me impressed.
I’m sure the Incipio Rival case helped, too — it has a nice ridge around the edge for screen protection that I suspect helped take some portion, however small, of the weight of the Jeep off the glass.
After that minor miracle I was anxious to make sure I replaced the screen protector with the same type — which meant figuring out what kind that was. I went back to the AT&T store, where I’d gotten the original one, and asked about the glass screen protectors they had. The customer service agent showed me a couple options and I recognized the one I’d had immediately. It was the BodyGuardz ScreenGuardz Pure for iPhone 6.
Here it is, Sunday, just a little over 24 hours since my carelessness almost cost me my digital camera (and the phone and whatnot attached to it), and I have a brand new BodyGuardz tempered glass screen protector on my phone. I wouldn’t have it any other way. I, for one, am now a believer.
