A friend of mine has had his phone replaced twice due to this before figuring out the cause, however now that there’s a formal publication in it I’d bet that changes.

This gets closer to slippery-slope argument, because in that case everything happens on black box software and is easier to manipulate or error prone. Apple can just say that logs say your gyro tells this and this. At which point you can’t trust for the warranty of your phone? Moisture stickers can be validated by third party in theory at least.

So too with gyroscopic readings unless you think those are fraudulent

> does the iPhone internally log strong vibrations sensed through the gyro/accelerometer

I would lean heavily towards "yes".

The why, I guess we'll never know the real answer, but I remember rumours, years ago, of manufacturers denying warranty claims based on "dropped" devices thanks to the gyro data.

There is likely characteristic physical damage from the vibration.