If you were texting while “otherwise engaged” in the latrine and you happened to let your Apple device slip from your hands and splash into the bowl, you’re not alone. It might put you at ease to hear that CNET recently reported that 16 percent of all iPhone accidents occur in the bathroom, with 9 percent of iPhone owners dropping their devices in the toilet.
There are steps you can take after your phone takes a dip. In a recent MacRumors forum post, user ryan.lheureux wrote a humorous post about what to do when an iPhone is dropped in a toilet.
“If you have not yet dropped your iPhone in the toilet, consider NOT dropping your iPhone in the toilet,” he wrote. “This is a solid course of action, in my opinion, and one that can be easily achieved by not keeping your iPhone in your back pocket, unless your back pocket has a button, but if that’s the case, you probably aren’t cool enough to own an iPhone in the first place, no? … In layman’s terms: pants down + phone falls = splish splash.”
For those of you who have already heard that dreaded splish splash, the first thing to do is get your device out of the water as quickly as possible, according to a recent article for iMike’s Help. Once you have retrieved your device, if it hasn’t already turned off by itself, turn it off immediately. The next step is to dry the device as thoroughly as possible.
“DO NOT PLACE IN RICE,” iMike’s Help wrote. “This is just a myth and can actually do more harm than good. Rice will not dry your phone fast enough, can get stuck in the headphone jack, swell from the moisture and be one pain in the buttocks to get out. Instead you need to find a dry, warm spot for the phone.”
The site suggested that the absolute perfect spot to put your phone to dry might be inside of a computer tower, as it is generally dry, particularly toasty and safe. Once you have found a prime spot to let your device dry, iMike’s Help recommends that you leave the phone alone for anywhere from 24 to 48 hours. Afterwards, check your device thoroughly for any visible signs of water still on the device, and if none are found, try plugging it into a power source and cross your fingers that it powers on.
While these steps may help rescue a phone from liquid death, water often causes serious damage and can, in many cases, require the phone’s logic board to be replaced. If your phone needs more than a thorough air-drying, iResQ’s iPhone repair services can fix it up in no time.