Since the release of the iPhone 4S, Apple (News - Alert) has seen some truly impressive sales numbers thanks to additions to the phone like Siri and the fact that a new carrier is able to offer the phone. Of course, some of those same new iPhone (News - Alert) 4S users are less than happy with the company because they claim they are running into problems such as yellow screens. 

Others are running into the very unfortunate incident where they are actually dropping the phone and suffering from a cracked screen. While the company has said that the yellow screens are something that will eventually work themselves out, they are working on a plan to help avoid cracked screens.

In a patent filed on Thursday, Apple detailed out the different ways the company is looking at in order to keep a phone healthy when it is dropped. One such method would work much the way an airbag does in a car, with a thin membrane of liquid filling between the screen and the rest of the device when it detects an impact is about to happen.

Another way to method would make the glass casing retractable, so that when the phone senses it is falling it will pull the most breakable part of the phone into itself. One thing is clear with the number of different ideas being floated out there by the company. Apple seems to think it has at the very least, devised a sensor that can not only sense when a phone is falling, but also react in the split seconds it would take before it hits the ground.

While Apple customers are probably relieved to see the company working on something like this, the motives behind it are far from altruistic. Apple is in the middle of a class action lawsuit based on the fact that the screens for the iPhone 4S do not appear to be as strong as the company has alleged. 

Finding ways to protect that glass will in turn, protect Apple for any further lawsuits that could be coming down the pike. It would also show that the company has concerns about the problem, maybe them more sympathetic during a trial.