Did your iPhone fall into the water? Don’t put it in rice, even Apple says so

An urban legend as old as the first printed circuit board says that, to repair an electronic device that has fallen into water, the best solution is to immerse it in rice. Apple disagrees.

This will perhaps put an end to a stubborn myth. In a web page put online a few weeks ago on its site, Apple details the procedure to follow if liquid is detected in an iPhone. After some common sense advice, the manufacturer specifies that the rice method, used since time immemorial, is useless and could even damage your device.

Rice, counterproductive?

In its section dedicated to “examples of what not to do“, Apple writes in black and white “don’t put your iPhone in a bag of rice“. According to the company, this serves no purpose and could even allow “small particles of this grass [d’]damage your device“. Enough to potentially put an end to a belief as old as time.

And truth be told, Apple isn’t completely wrong. The rice technique has actually been criticized for many years. The trick supposedly originated from an article published in Popular Photography magazine in 1946 where it was noted that, for absorbing moisture on one’s equipment in certain climates, rice could be useful. But in reality, the article above all indicates that silica gel is a much preferable solution, because the absorption capacity of substitutes (including rice) “is so low that huge quantities are needed to achieve any effect“.

Since then, numerous fact-checking articles have returned to this myth, always arriving at the same conclusion: dipping your smartphone soaked in rice could do more harm than good. Although food can absorb some of the moisture present in the phone, it will never be able to dry out the water that has seeped into the circuits. The idea that rice can save your smartphone, however, pushes many people, through panic, to try to turn their mobile back on after a few hours in a grass bath. This is where the damage occurs.

The best thing to do? Turn off and wait

By trying to plug in or turn on your cell phone while it is still wet, it is possible to create short circuits which will certainly fry the motherboard. Even if a mobile seems to work after spending time at the bottom of the bathtub, it is possible that corrosion will gradually eat away at the inside of the phone and render it useless a few days after its underwater excursion.

The best thing to do in the event of an unplanned bath is to turn off your smartphone, put it in a well-ventilated area and not touch it for at least a few hours (ideally a day). This will give the water a chance to dry without creating a short circuit. If you can remove the battery, even better.

Apple also advises to “Tap [son iPhone] keeping the connector pointed downward to remove excess liquid» and above all not to dry your iPhone “using an external heat source or compressed air can“. The same goes for cotton swabs and paper towels which can leave residue.

Source : Apple