So you’ve just committed one of the most dreaded acts of iPhone ownership, and have dropped your baby into some kind of liquid (we’ll say water, for the purposes of this article, but hey, we don’t judge either way), and you are now in full-on panic mode. How does one go about performing CPR on a drowned iPhone? A little bit of luck, some quick action, and a good deal of patience, may actually allow you to save your precious and sophisticated piece of electronic equipment.
If your cat-like reflexes allowed you to snatch your iPhone quickly enough from the body of water it happened into, and it hasn’t become completely submerged, you are well on your way to saving your sweet baby smartphone. Quick, power it down, remove the battery, and grab an airtight container!
I can only assume that you have not prepared for this potentially by saving up all those little packs of silica gel that come in pretty much everything from vitamins to purses to shoes, because silica gel is made specifically to draw all the water out of anything and everything around it, and can actually absorb up to 40% of its mass in moisture. You may decide to start stockpiling those now, but they can also be found in many electronics stores and online pretty easily.
You are probably more likely to have rice readily available than you are silica gel, so as long as you have the uncooked kind (no 90-second or anything like that, since they are already moist and will do more harm than good), you’re going to want to place all the pieces of your iPhone into the container and cover them completely with the rice. Once you’ve done that, the only step left is the hardest one- you have to leave your iPhone buried in its rice sarcophagus for three days before you can put it back together and power it up. I know, I know… How will you make it that long? Maybe you’ll just take it to Apple and have them replace it or work some kind of immediate magic on it instead.
Not so fast, my friend… Once your iPhone has come into contact with water, Apple assumes no responsibility whatsoever for repairing or replacing it. Yeah, you could try lying, but unfortunately, your iPhone will tattle on you, thanks to its built-in Liquid Contact Indicators, which turn pink once you attempt to drown it.
Your best bet is to handle your iPhone carefully, and maybe stock up on that silica get I was telling you about. Oh, and maybe get some phone insurance- sometimes that will come through when Apple won’t. You can call your local phone repair company and see if the phone is still fixable.
