Locations of airbags deployment

You're absolutely right, it's hard to find any place near the driver and passenger where you can be sure it's safe to mount hard objects that you don't want to be launched by the airbags.

The passenger front bag will erupt right through the top of the dash, pretty much centrally above the glove boxes. It's a large bag, and of course it expands back toward the seat and out to the sides.

-Chap

 

If you stay on the console between the seats you will be "safe" though your holder can still become a projectile on its own. Vent holders ARE NOT safe! In a high speed collision even "small" objects are dangerous.
The bags come out from: (drivers side)centre of steering wheel, under the dash, above door, outside seat bolster
(passenger side) same without the under dash bag, steering wheel bag comes out from the dash and is very large
(rear)above door only

If you can find the brochure from Toyota it actually shows all the bags deployed.

(mounts podium) The safest place for a cellphone is in storage and on "ignore" when driving. ALL studies have shown "hands free" is just as dangerous as holding a cellphone while driving. My experience has shown the same, and I'm more capable than any of you!
(dismounts podium)

I defer judgement re GPS direction from a cellphone. It can be safer knowing where to turn and it can be more dangerous trying to operate the GPS application while driving.

 

Page 14 has a side view. An overhead would have been nicer for your purposes.

 

So , my cell phone mount is to the left of the steering wheel. It's a suction mount to the windshield, with a horizontal bar extending towards the driver, terminating with a sort of squeezing rectangle that faces the driver, to which the phone attaches.

Is this safe? It seems so..

The bar is about 4-5" long.

 

I don't think any of the bags come close to the windshield.

In some states it's illegal to attach anything to the windshield (California, for example). The reason is those objects can cause the windshield to fail in a crash earlier than it would normally. The windshield of a modern car is part of the "structure" and is required to be in "good condition" (no cracks) for the crash worthiness of the vehicle to be predictable (safe).

With that in mind I've used the dash surface for various things such as an Amateur radio control head, Scangauge, and even a GPS, all mounted ahead of where the bags move. I've used 3M stick on velcro. Because the cords go back towards the driver, in a crash the device -usually- wouldn't hit the windshield - the cords would slow or stop it. That was the theory anyway. Thankfully I never got the "crash test" to prove it.

Something to keep in mind. No matter what you do, you probably can't predict -exactly- what will happen in a crash. I know the engineers aren't successful every time. I've seen "tweaking" of interior layouts after the -first- actual crash test.

 

Here is another picture gleaned from a Google image search. It shows how far over to the left the passenger side bag comes. Just about to the center-left vent. The space forward of the steering wheel appears to be "open". I am in total agreement with Mr. Beale though in regard to placement of devices within the cabin for convenience. You will not be able to safely stow that device in the split second before disaster.