iPhone vs. Washing Machine - WINNER: IPHONE
Ok, so first off - yes, I am a colossal idiot and accidentally washed my iPhone. It was in the small pocket of my jeans when I was preparing them for the wash, and a quick glance at the table gave me the impression that my iPhone was not in my jeans. The curse of having two iPhones in the house. Later on, when I discovered that was not my iPhone, I pretty much immediately sprinted down to the laundry room, dreading what I was about to find.
Sure enough, right at the bottom of the washing machine: my precious, glorious, unresponsive iPhone. Clean as a WHISTLE, but unresponsive. After my four stages of trauma set in, (horror, disbelief, self-loathing and ennui) and I was lamenting the walk of shame over to the Apple Store to purchase another one, I decided to plug it in - just to see what happened. Well the screen lit up with this actually-kind-of-beautiful pattern, there seemed to be some moisture under the screen. Very similar to when you take a shower with your nice watch on (another proud moment in my life.)
After a little while, it popped up the 'ok idiot, plug this iphone into itunes please' with a 'your phone is broken!! call support' message. So I hitched out a deep sigh, and placed my phone on the bedside table, composing my iphone's requiem in my head.
Fast forward to this morning. I took my iPhone with me to work for some unknown reason, and for shits and giggles docked it. It went through the standard sync procedure, the screen came on, and *FANFARE* - iPhone works! Screen works, internet works, it both sends and receives calls, everything SEEMS to be working fine. There's still a bit of fog on the screen, and I'm hopeful that will work itself out in time. If it starts acting screwy, I'll post some updates... but as of now, works great!
Here's my question: HOW. IN. THE. WORLD. IS. THIS. POSSIBLE?????? MY IPHONE WENT:
**THROUGH AN ENTIRE WASH CYCLE IN A WASHING MACHINE WHILE POWERED ON**
At any rate, thank you very much for making such a good product, Apple.
Labels: iphone
posted by Alex at
9:21 AM
14 Comments:
well that's one way to get the face grease off. (yes, i'm shocked too.)
By
angie, at 5:05 PM
This is a surprisingly common occurrence. Cell phones and iPods can very often survive even extended submersion if they are given a chance to throughly dry out. Not that you should really test that hypothesis or anything, but I know a number of people who have revived various electronics after they got dunked.
By
jab, at 5:16 PM
YOUR A MUPPET
By
Anonymous, at 12:02 PM
lol nice one, the best I've ever done was back in the day I washed my PS1 memory card and it still worked... this is slightly more impressive though XD
By
Leigh, at 1:44 AM
Donkey snarf boogers tweedle dee wtf
By
Anonymous, at 11:38 AM
I've done the same thing with my samsung Sprint phone. it was wonderful to watch it come back to life. i think this is actually not as uncommon as i thought, i think most people just have less patience and assume that it's dead.
By
Josh, at 8:39 AM
I did this to my iphone too! Pretty much wanted to cry when I found out what I'd done, the screen had all these crazy moire-ish/diagonal line patterns in it...but I did some research and found that keeping the iphone in a bag of white rice could help dry it out, so that's what I did. A week later the screen looks perfect, you wouldn't even know that it had gone through an entire washing machine cycle... with soap!
By
Anonymous, at 2:52 PM
it hppend to me with my gameboy when i was 4(who know the shower would kill it)
By
Anonymous, at 6:47 AM
Keep an eye on the battery life. I went swimming last summer with my Shuffle in my pocket (why I'd ever put an iPod in my trunks, I'll never know), and though it still powers on, it keeps its charge now for 5 minutes max and quits.
By
Anonymous, at 11:37 PM
I'll one up you on this one... I washed and then dried my iPhone. It came out of the drier cracked battered and bruised but after putting in on the charger for a few hours it came right back to life and works perfectly. The glass on the front of the phone is cracked but other than that I still use it. Not one thing wrong with it. WOW!!
By
Mike, at 10:22 AM
I've gone through at least seven different cell phones in last 4 years, searching for what I hoped would be the uber phone. I had a Nokia N95, which the Nokia promises is a super computer phone. It also retails for an average of $300.00 more than the iPhone. I put off the iPhone purchase as long as I could. I chalked iPhone fever up to Apple hype. But, I have never, ever been happier with a phone than I have with my iPhone. Your story just proves what a great product Apple made!
By
Tasha Ward, at 12:09 AM
It should still work as long as it was not on and there was no power going to it. Electricity likes going to the path of least resistance and water is a good conductor with no resistance. If the iPhone was on, the electricity running through it would bypass the built-in electrical wires and resistors, and fuses and cause a short, or an overload and burn stuff up. I believe that by the time you powered it on, it was pretty much dry (I bet you set it on a rinse cycle), but still had some condensation, causing a small short somewhere, hence the warning when you first turned it on. But by the time you docked it the next day, it would have dried out more and was good to go. I used to work at HP and we used to wash circuit boards in water after a computer would auto solder the board. Some parts didn't need the solder so we had to cover these parts up with an epoxy paste ( I forget the technical name of the paste-like substance). After this was done, we had to wash out the paste by running distilled water over the circuit board. We then had to dry it completely, or the water would create a short when powered on. I believe that we put it in a warm oven (I had this job in 1995 so it's been a while). Once it was completely dry, it was good to install into the machines, in this case, electronic testing equipment. The previous post was correct in that you have to watch the battery. The water may have caused a short between the two terminals (negative and positive) and may have damaged it. If you are lucky, maybe it's okay. I think the only problem you may have is the condensation under the screen. This may be hard to dry, and once it does, it may leave a big ugly spot under the screen, but if you can live with it, more power to you. Also, check the net to see if you can take off the screen. I had some dust under my PSP slim and was able to take off the screen and clean it. Anyway, good luck.
By
Grouchy Dude, at 3:50 PM
Just took my son's IPhone out from the washing machine, it seems ok except turning itself on. I will let it dry to see if it helps.
By
Spoon, at 7:19 AM
I went to my schools fountain day and was in like a tidal wave for 30 mins my phone was soaked. it was on when it happen and i also tried putting it on and it turned on but now 5 hours later it doesn't do it anymore but the screen will light up when i pluged it in. I'm letting it sit in rice over night and hopefully it still will work and if not at least a get the second addition of the phone.
By
Anonymous, at 1:42 AM
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