iPhone fanatics are used to seeing all sorts of excitement from jubilant customers on launch day, but a celebratory throw is not chief among them - that is, until this morning.

Startup founder James Griffith arrived at Apple's flagship Regent Street store before dawn on Thursday to join the hoards of eager customers hoping to be among the first to get their hands on the newest release.

But when he finally got his hands on one of the £1,150 devices he decided to immediately test its durability - by lobbing it 25ft into the air.

James Griffith throws his brand new iPhone into the air outside the Apple store in London

The phone comes crashing down before hitting the tarmac as a crowd of Apple fans stood outside the shop collectively hold their breath.

Mr Griffith works for Mous, a company that designs 'military-grade' protective cases for iPhones and was testing one out on the new gadget for the first time.

Despite his extensive experiments, which saw him chuck the device across the pavement and even let a stranger have a go, no damage was done.

Mr Griffith said: 'I was extremely nervous live testing our cases in front of everyone.

'This was the first time we were able to test the cases we'd developed with the new iPhone X – anything could have gone wrong!'

Extensive testing: Mr Griffith chucks the phone across the pavement on Regent Street