Glass is smooth, shiny, and beautiful — the perfect surface to convey your touch and intent to the brilliant mind of your iPhone 16 Pro Max. However, it’s also not indestructible, and sometimes does typical glass things, like shatter into countless pieces when dropped. That’s the result of a recent AllState drop test using Apple’s latest series of iPhones.
The US-based insurance company has stopped selling iPhones for 13 years and reports that the iPhone 16 Pro Max did not survive its “breakability” test this year. No iPhone has survived the Allstate Protection Plan drop test in more than a dozen years.
When the company placed the iPhone 16 Pro Max in a special stand, also known as a “Dropbot,” and dropped it from a height of 6 feet onto a concrete sidewalk surface face-down, the screen cracked, the display flickered, and then went dark (see the test for yourself in the video below).
Since haptic feedback could still be felt when touching the display, there's a chance that only the screen needs to be replaced. When they performed the same test with the back facing down, the glass around the camera array cracked, but the phone remained fully functional. This is a better result than the iPhone 15 Pro Max, which stopped working last year after a fall on its back.
Obviously, AllState, which sells additional protection for mobile devices, has something at stake here. Demonstrating that the iPhone isn’t a concrete test could make people more willing to consider a protection plan from their company for their new iPhone 16 Pro Max.
The results are a little disappointing, though. At launch, Apple said that its second-generation Ceramic Shield, a custom glass blend developed in conjunction with Corning (they make the Gorilla Glass found in most top-of-the-line smartphones), is not only 50% stronger than the first generation, but also tougher than the glass found in most other smartphones.
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I've been testing both the iPhone 16 Pro Max and iPhone 16 Pro, which are excellent smartphones with Apple Intelligence technology and slightly updated, larger designs. I don't do drop tests on purpose, though I did accidentally drop the iPhone 16 Pro Max from a height of 3 feet onto an uneven floor.
As expected, everything went smoothly. I also put cases on both phones. The iPhone 16 Pro Max currently has a lovely Speck case. They’re very durable and protect the back, sides, and edges, and since the edges and corners are stress points for these edge-to-edge Super Retina XDR displays, they help protect the glass, too.
The iPhone 16 Pro comes in a silicone case, which provides good protection. However, when I looked at the screen a couple of days ago, I noticed a scratch that ran almost the entire length of the phone. I can assure you that I wasn't carrying the phone with a diamond or a key in my pocket. I'm very careful, and yet, there's the scratch.
My point, and perhaps the same as Allstate, is that this is glass, and there’s not much you can do to protect it. As I wrote last month, “it’s still too easy to damage our precious phones.” At the time, I was writing about the new Google Pixel 9, a phone covered in Gorilla Victus 2 glass that also quickly ended up with countless scratches.
These tests are inconclusive. Allstate used two different phones to perform the front and back drop tests. When the DropBot results came back with virtually the same results as last year, Allstate opted not to retest. There's a chance that subsequent tests would have yielded different results. I've seen people drop their phones on the pavement from a height of four or five feet, and the devices got bumped, fell, and somehow survived without a scratch.
While it's true that the iPhone 16 Pro Max didn't perform well in these tests, we'll never know what hundreds of similar drops might have done. As far as I'm concerned, the fragility of these devices isn't due to a manufacturing defect, but I do believe there's an element of luck involved. That's why cases are so popular – they're the only way to tilt the odds in your favor.
I've asked Apple for comment and will update this post with their response.
