Wet iPhone dos and don'ts, according to Apple
Highly likely, over 95% of iPhone owners have exposed their beloved devices to utterly excessive amounts of water, be it a mild nuisance such as rain or an ultimate disaster like a toilet bowl. Starting with iPhone 7, Apple’s been designing its key moneymaker waterproof, moving up the IP (ingress protection) rating schedule. That model, according to the manufacturer, could survive a dive to the depth of 1 meter for 30 minutes. The latest so far, iPhone 15, is an IP68 gadget, which means it’s built to remain fully functional after half an hour under 6 meters of water. Regardless, every time your phone gets wet, you jump into action and do everything the web tells you to dry it up quickly, right? Turns out, literally no trick is necessary in such cases, and some are downright harmful.
Drying iPhone in rice: myth busted!
In early January of 2024, Apple published an article to its support section titled “If you see a liquid-detection alert on your iPhone.” This piece covers a situation when there’s water in the phone’s USB-C port, but it actually gives a very good idea how you should dry an iPhone in all other situations associated with water.
Instead of rushing to the rescue, the support post urges restraint and patience:
- first off, rotate the phone so the USB-C port looks down, and gently tap it against the palm of your hand to force out any remaining drops (in case the gadget took a dive, common sense suggests wiping its exterior dry with a soft towel or a paper tissue);
- secondly, put it somewhere exposed to light movements of air and let it be for 30+ minutes;
- then try charging the device, and if the liquid-in-connector alarm blips up again, go analog for a full 24 hours, because, according to Apple, it may take this much time for the port to dry up completely.
The article could have ended there, but whoever authored it decided to go further and added a list of don’ts thereto:
- don’t try to force heat your wet iPhone with anything, including that fancy hair dryer;
- don’t push cotton swabs or finely rolled pieces of paper towels into the port;
- finally, don’t put your iPhone into a bag of rice, it doesn’t help but may well harm the device (small particles of rice get inside and damage the circuitry there).
So, patience and self-control are the keys. And being cautious about dropping the phone into water, of course!
To be on the safe side, it also makes sense to back up your iPhone every now and then. Browse the Back-up section of Informer's catalogue of Mac software and find the program that fits your bill perfectly:
