Wouldn't the iPad just hit terminal velocity pretty quickly, making most of the height of the drop relatively useless?
True. Doesn't necessarily make it less impressive if true :)
The branches on the right disappear after the camera cuts away (I had to flip the image): http://i.imgur.com/a9qbm.png
If you watch it again you'll see he steps on the bush as he walks up pushing down and out of the frame.
Ah. You're right, I missed that.
It looks like the GoPro and the remnants of the balloon helped it. The extra mass of the GroPro body allowed it to fall flat with the camera and ballon allowing it to spin on it's way down, like a maple seed. Also it looks like it landed on the aluminum side facing down with GroPro body hitting the ground first.
Still pretty cool though.
I would guess this was faked. Look at the video a couple seconds after it lands - seems like there is somebody walking right nearby. Also something sounds off about sending an object up into the upper atmosphere and it landing only 70 yards away.
The 70 yards thing is entirely fishy. Compared to this video, where it dropped 20 miles away, yeah. I don't really believe it survived, and they replaced it with another.