What to Do With a Wet iPhone

Need to know how to rescue a wet iPhone? Though the Internet may be filled with images of unfortunately cracked iPhones, in general, the iPhone is pretty durable.  It is going to survive most drops and bumps, most time you get food on it, and a case will do just about everything to increase its life span.  The real death sentence for the iPhone is going to be liquid, and if your iPhone is ever submerged in a good amount of water it may be done for.  Unless you act fast.

The first thing you have to note is that you cannot take your iPhone in to Apple Support if it has gotten wet.  There are sensors on the iPhone that will activate when water touches them and will indicate to the person looking at it that the user has exposed it to water, and warranties or Apple Care will not cover this.  Even if you try to get it past them and simply report problems with it working, it will be easy for them to figure this out and they tell you simply that you can feel free to buy a new one.  The sensor that they look for is called the Liquid Contact Indicator right inside where you slide your headphone.  Under the new policy the Apple staff cannot just determine it unable to be repaired based on the LCI reading, but once they open up the device they usually can figure it out.

If you have dropped the iPhone in a sizeable portion of water the first thing you will want to do is nothing.  Do not try to work with your iPhone at all as if it has gotten water into it any use of the iPhone will force the device to process from its energy source and could force it to short out.  This is a catch-22 since if you do not do anything to it then you may receive a phone call or notification, which could then short it out.  You have a choice to make then if you want to go ahead and actually turn off your iPhone, which you can do quickly by holding down the Wake and Home buttons simultaneously.  If it has a case on it then this should come off immediately, though many cases will protect it through this process.  This is especially true of the higher end of cases, such as the Otter Box.

From here you are going to want to give a sizeable amount of time to actually dry out the iPhone.  This can mean setting it in a dry and warm location at the very least, but you are going to need to know that it will take substantial time.  One of the most important things you can do to aid in this process is immediately put it into a bag filled part way with uncooked rice.  The rice will begin absorbing the moisture and you can let it set for a couple days.  Another method is to use a hair dryer on one of the lower settings, but whatever the option is you will need to do it for a substantial period of time to try to compensate for evaporation.  An additional option is to take a large number of Silica packets that are normally used in electronics or other commercial items that are shipping, and then put them in a back with the iPhone.

 For both of the absorption methods you are going to want to allow it 24-60 hours for drying before you take it out and attempt to restart it.  If you have gotten water behind the screen already it may be too late, though it is much more practical to change the touch screen than the entire iPhone.