Six months under water and iPhone 4 STILL WORKS If you submerged a phone in two metres of water for any serious period of time, you'd never expect to see it work again, right? So imagine the surprise when one iPhone owner recovered his handset from a lake six months after it fell in - only to find it still works. iPhone owners are well known for dropping their blowers in …
If he did claim on insurance, all he needs to do is return it to the insurance company. But the chances are that he does *not* have phone insurance (after all, it's us Europeans who are so paranoid about cost that we insure our phones, in the US people often just go out and buy a new one), so it is still his.
Last time i checked I was a European, and strongly object to the whole idea of mobile phone insurance, regardless of cost for both phone and insurance.
I know someone who works at carphone warehouse, and he actually considers people tight if they don't sign up to insurance deals. Nonesense. You weigh up how you will treat your expensive new toy with how much it will cost you not to make an insurance claim, and you decide its not worth it. This is something the americans seem to understand, but too many of us over here are convinced by chatty sales staff that insurance is a catch all solution to the disasters that await the phone the minute it comes out of the box.
I'm not that shocked.
Once the power goes, the board will slowly degrade, yes, but there's nothing to "damage" the electronics as such. If it survives the initial plunge and short-circuit, it'll probably stay down there for quite a while unaffected.
What will happen is moving parts will seize and the boards will get mucky. Presumably the battery bulge is because of a short-circuited battery from the water. Everything else? Well, it'll survive until there's time for something to actually eat the copper tracks under the lacquer on the PCB. Speakers go because they physically are made of cardboard for the main component and that degrades in water very quickly.
I've seen computers operating for years with dead animals inside them. I've dealt with cameras, phones and laptops that have been submerged in the muddiest of waters. Pretty much, so long as there's no physical damage to the machine (not just cruft, but something actually breaking / shorting / disintegrating), it'll turn back on once it's dry enough and you power it up. Cameras suffer worse because of their lens movement machinery but SD cards are nigh-on invincible from the perspective of water. So are USB sticks. It's things with power that can short and burn connections that you need to worry about, but even I've had laptops that have survived major coke / coffee / tea spillage while turned on.
If you have no power, then there's no real risk to the components. There's nothing to short the memory or overwrite and corrupt the data, even if the chip itself is completely submerged. No power = no voltage and the silicon chips are sealed units. The surrounding water is no different to just putting a connector across all the pins - when there's no power, it won't do anything at all. And everything else is plastic, lacquer-coated PCB's and various contacts. You'll find the edge connectors corrode faster than anything else in there and they will still take months of submergence to actually wear away to the point they can't work again with a clean wipe-over.
It's not at all surprising. In fact, I'd be most miffed if my own phone couldn't do just that.
Yep, fell/flung/thrown off a dock with my Motorola W755 Razr flip-phone into lake some years ago - found it with my toes on the lake bed, had an incoming call and it was vibrating lol. In any case, fished it out (5 minute max immersion), pulled the battery, dried it out, and used it to the end of the contract. It's been retired but I can still fire it up even today.
Another underwater electronics story concerns an 83 Toyota pickup I had the misfortune of getting caught in a flood with (the authorities had to come get me out after the bed filled, knew I was in trouble then lol). Anyway... it was underwater for 2.5 hours and I just used a hose to wash it out after I got it home. Left to dry out for a month then got started cleaning it out - bonus to Toyota, they seal their components pretty good, only filtered water got into the engine/transmission - changed all fluids and started it up. Of course the starter only lasted a few more times due to crud inside, net loss was battery, radio (powered at time of flood), HVAC blower motor, and speakers. Drove it a few more years after that, occasionally would hit a hard bump and mud would fall out from under dash - made me smile.
Bottom line: electronics are pretty tough.
;)
Have you seen what Top Gear have done to a Hilux? I don't think they were able to kill it despite doing all sorts - fire, water (24 hours in the sea, I think), dropping caravans on it, bashing into a tree (they got into trouble for that one), sticking it on a tower block being demolished. All it took was some spanners/hammers and a bit of cleaning and it still fired up and drove (although I think they lost 4WD when a shaft broke)
The impressive thing is that water didn't get in until the battery had run down. (If at all? ) Score +1 for "no user-serviceable parts inside".
As remarked above, it's not water that kills electronics, it's the electrolysis that happens very rapidly if you mix water and electricity. If ever someone tips (say) a glass of wine into your lap-top, IMMEDIATELY yank out the battery pack. You can then probably rescue it by washing it under a tap to get the wine out (sticky acidic residues) and then drying it out in an airing cupboard for a couple of weeks. Just make damn sure all the water is evaporated before you put that battery back.
Cola does kill electronics. The Phosphoric acid does much the same as water plus electricity, though you might get a few minutes grace to was it out. If you don't wash it thoroughly enough the acid concentrates as the water evaporates. Did I mention it also dissolves teeth and aggravates gout?
Indeed, all they've done is switched it back on, upon which time the presumably sim-less phone says it needs activation but allows you to go to the emergency dialler.
Very odd that "deslizar para sos" is in Spanish, and Notruf is in German, though. And this presumably all happened in Alabama.
Nearly there with the explanation.. Irrespective of the user prefered language, the iPhone will cycle through various languages when displaying the "emergency call" message. I guess it's because you can't be sure who has the phone at the time of needing to make an emergency call. The owner would be able to just put in the pin code and turn it on. So the message is only useful if you don't have/can't input the pin which possibly menas you're not the owner blah blah blah...
I machine washed my iphone once, but didn't realise until it got on to the spin cycle and I could hear this "CLUNK CLUNK CLUNK" and thought "hmm, whats that, wait, where's my phone". Tried all the bag of rice tricks, but 1 hour getting flung around a washing machine did more damage than the water I think.
Bought a white one for a replacement, stands out against my sheets now :)
Had a PC for repair after coffee was spilled on it by our salesman. He told me he turned it off straight away.
Stripped it down, dried it out and powered it up, but it was dead.
Then he admitted that he first put the PC under the hand dryer then turned it on for a bit so the heat would dry it out when it died...
If he said that in the first place I wouldn't have bothered.
My dad once had an Ericsson R310s (actually he had several because the rubber used to perish). Supposedly it was pretty much the most rugged phone in existence, but my dad thought he'd killed one. He managed to sit in a jacuzzi with it in his pocket for 45 minutes, whilst switched on. He didn't realise until he got out. It was dead and there were waves in the screen. But! We left it to dry for two weeks and popped a new battery in it and it was as good as new. So much for "waterproof" - the water got in, and then somehow even got back out again.
In terms of what's on the display, take the SIM out of an iPhone and switch it on. Doesn't matter where you are, it'll cycle through several languages for both the slide text and the emergency number text.
"But when the name dialled on the image of the broken phone is "Notruf", you have to wonder, don't you?"
It's not a dialled name. It's the standard display after you've switched a new unactivated iPhone on... Notruf is German for Emergency Call. The name/message cycles through various languages, including German, Japanese and English.
Saw this the other day: http://www.rescuetec.com/ I haven't used it, but its basically a pouch with moisture absorbing crystals (more absorbent than silica gel, apparently) and an indicator strip to inform you when your phone is dry enough to power on.
My Sansa Clip mp3 player survived a complete cycle in the washing machine once, and was a perfectly happy after being left to dry for a few days. I had found the built-in battery completely discharged, and was mildly surprised that it took a new charge and worked.
It had parted company with its microSD card, but this turned up a couple of months later, when necessity dictated I unscrew the washing machine's waste filter... amongst the black gunk was the card, again cheerfully functional.
Ah, the Sansa Clip - MP3 playing perfection, Apple could learn a thing or ten about real design (as opposed to "how to add gloss" from it. Though sadly mine's an original without the SD card slot... a very, very rare occurrance of an updated version of a product actually containing real improvements without ruining what was there before! I'll try and keep mine out of the wash anyway...
Another happy Sansa Clip user here - it's a great bit of kit and often gets admiring glances when it's on my desk.. My Clip's a more recent one with the micro SD card slot....that upgrade might have been an improvement on the original, but it also introduced "SlotRadio" which is a class example of "what the **** were they thinking of?!?!"
It didn't work after that. Since then it has gradually come back to life. The screen is working perfectly, including touch. The buttons work, but the speakers and microphones do not. I can play music through headphones, but not make any calls, or connect to any wifi, or pair any bluetooth devices. So I guess the wireless chippery is broken. The fact that this one displays "Searching..." like mine, suggests his wireless chippery is broken too! I found the thing with the most visible damage is the battery. This has a tiny circuit inside the wrapping tape, and this has clearly tried to electrolyse the fluid that seeped. It is all white and furry! My enquiries about getting it repaired suggested that the logic board would need replacing, because the lack of wireless connectivity, and it would be cheaper to get a new phone instead.
A few years ago in the spring, we found an LG flip phone (don't know the model) submerged in a puddle on my mother-in-law's lawn. Took it home, dried it out, and, after it turned on and worked perfectly, we searched the contacts list, found the usual 'Home' entry, and called it. The owner said she'd lost it walking home one day the previous October. It had sat in a snowbank by mom's sidewalk through the winter, then finally melted out into the puddle. Looked and worked like new.
I left my Xpress Music upsides down on in by back lawn for a week, which was wet and dewy - it fell out of my pocket on a Thur, and I went away for a week's holiday the next day, straight after work.
Found it on the Mon, 10 days later, took it in, removed the protective back cover, the actual back cover, and battery, gently dried it for 24hrs, and it's still working fine 2 years later.
It had an interesting tartan pattern - I assume that's the resistive touch matrix - which slowly faded over the next month.
"If you submerged a phone in two metres of water for any serious period of time, you'd never expect to see it work again, right?"
No, if it was freshwater and I took the correct precautions, I would expect it to work... This says NOTHING about the iPhone4s build quality (which we know is lacking), it's only the same as any other phone....
Dropped my old Palm Treo 650 (Yes, I know, but I LIKED it) into the oil/water in the bilge of a boat. managed to fish it out, took it apart (And a piece of wee wee that was, thanks be to proper phone assembly without resorting to double sided tape, etc) flushed it off, sprayed deodorant to get rid of as much of the oil as poss, water flush again and it spent the rest of the holiday in a warm cupboard neare the enginer, with some raw rice.
Put it back togther and it was fine for years, including speakers, mike and touchscreen.
I liked that phone and it was in many ways, to my mind at least, as good, if not better than 'modern' blackberries, smartphones and the like. There was no crudware, the UI was utterly logical yet reasonably attractive and the backup software simply worked.
Camera was always shite though.
They don't build phones like that any more, but i wish they did.
Got called once about a 1990's Toshiba laptop that had been overboard from a yacht into Poole Harbour. Asked them to remove the battery and keep it wet in a bucket of fresh water until they could bring it in. After rinsing and drying the components several times, found it went back together and worked, fair bit of corrosion around the clock battery and a lot of brown stuff came out of the fan (but that's Poole Harbour for you).
The really nasty laptop killer was baby puke from maternity leave, where the mums were checking their email during feeds.
…this can only be explained by magic. And believe in magic iPhones since I have one. My iPhone 4, bought in the first week after release, has been immersed in salt water twice (and in the sink twice more to get the damned salt out of it), smashed into rock while I've been climbing, dropped onto concrete and stone - and just about everything that would normally result in phone death. It's uncased too, so it gets the full brunt of my abuse. And it's still my daily phone - how could I be so disloyal to the little tough nuts as to replace it?
It's chipped and the lens cover is MIA - but there are no cracks in the glass, so everything else is merely a slight battle-scar.
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