No, I didn’t drop my iPhone in the water. I don’t own an iPhone even! But I’ve been seeing a lot of ‘fail’ type videos where people fall into bodies of water not infrequently. Of course, their first concern is always to get their phone out of the water, etc.
But they usually cut off at that point.
Which leaves me wondering, if someone falls in a pool, hot tub, the lake, with their phone in hand, is it going to work again?
Or is that look on their faces because they know all hope is lost?
Because lots of people seem to be using their phones in spots where it would be remarkably easy to drop your phone into the water.
So what’s the facts?
Also, even before phones became water-resistant, dropping in water wasn’t always the kiss of death. Leave the phone off, let it fully dry over a few days, and sometimes they work again.
I dropped my first iPhone into water, it was an early one, I think maybe a 3.
I dried it off, washes it some 90% alcohol and blew it out. I let it dry completely and it worked.
My son dropped his first phone into a pool, we dried it and packed it in rice and into the fridge for 24 hours. Phone worked. That was a 5 or 6.
ETA: Before some one repeats the faulty article that claims using rice is not a good idea, that is incorrect. Using rice is not ideal but is usually a method people have stuff on hand for.
Do not put it in a bag with rice and seal. Not too effective.
Do ensure it is powered off and pull the sim card, remove the cover!
Put it in a open container of rice in a very dry place. The fridge is a fairly good choice in most case. Got something better? Use it.
if you actually have desiccant packs, that works better than rice and less dusty if you have the right stuff.
90%+ alcohol evaporates very quick and if the phone went into a mud puddle, toilet or something like that is a best cleaning agent.
I know this question was about iPhones, but much the same is true of other phones. Newer, higher-end phones are environmentally sealed. Older and cheaper phones aren’t, but nonetheless sometimes recover from a quick dunking.
I rescued a non-sealed phone that dropped into water years ago. My last several Android phones have been environmentally sealed. I sometimes wash the current one with soap and water. If I get too much water up it’s charging point (only happened once) I get a message on the screen telling me not to use it until it’s dried out.
I would never consider putting something in the refrigerator that I wanted to dry out. Warm and dry is much better at removing moisture than cold and dry. The relative humidity in a refrigerator tends to be around 65% which is higher than you usually find in the rest of your home. A warmer environment has more energy available to cause evaporation, so even if the relative humidity was the same, I still think you’d be better off at higher temperatures. Putting a sealed container of rice in a refrigerator defeats the purpose since it raises the relative humidity inside that container.
Rice is not a magic moisture magnet - it will absorb moisture that is directly adjacent to the grains, but in order for that to be useful, that moisture has to have left the phone - blowing a fan across the phone would be more effective
I was kayaking once and I tipped out into the water. I had my wallet and iPhone 5 in two ziplock baggies. Guess which baggie was perfectly dry and which leaked and was full of water?
I put the waterlogged iPhone in rice and a couple days later it booted up! It worked fine for several more months until one day it just died. I think something inside gradually corroded over time.
I have an iPhone 6 now and a special dry container for it when I go kayaking these days.
One piece of information that is adjacent to the topic - if you have an older or less ‘premium’ (non flagship) phone and they get wet, there’s another concern even if you get it working after a dunking. If the immersion triggers the Liquid Contact Indicator, you just voided your warranty with your carrier or the manufacturer. As an example -
What can make it painful is that even if you’re trying to get warranty service for something you think is unrelated, but the indicator is tripped you are almost always out of luck. So one more reason to worry.
Once, I had to jump in a swimming pool fully dressed to grab my 2-year-old, who’d just fallen in. I had my phone, wallet, and all four of our passports in my pockets. Everything dried out fine. Phone (a non-water-rated phone) went in a bag of rice for 4 days.
It seemed to be fine after that, but I read that drying sometimes leaves deposits, and it shortens the life of the phone. Six months later, it stopped being able to connect to the network.
My current phone, rated to be pretty waterproof, I’ve dropped in the bath.
I immediatelyy took out and dried the outside, gave it a shake and went right on using it.
@What_Exit I’m intrigued by the refrigerator suggestions. I was under the impression that the reason we’re told not to keep some items in the fridge (e.g. apples) is that, while cool, they aren’t actually all that dry.
As for my experience, I’ve salvaged some things and not others. It seems to me to have more to do with how quickly you get everything turned off, and then letting it dry out completely.
If it’s not environmentally sealed, and it has parts you can open (say, to replace a battery… Remember that) doing so well help it dry out before anything corrodes.
I believe that you were to place it in a plastic bag with rice in the fridge. The plastic bag was so the rice didn’t absorb refrigerator humidity and odors. It would just absorb the moisture in the bag.