What to do if your brand-new iPhone drowns like ours did
What to do if your brand-new iPhone drowns like ours did:- Take a look at this picture of the gold iPhone 8 camera lens. Do you see the water droplets crowding together like an iridescent prism? It’s beautiful, but has no place in a camera, especially one rated to repel water and dust for up to 3 feet and 30 minutes.
And yet, it happened to our phone.
Here’s the scene. CNET tests the claim of every phone rated IP67 and above with a baseline dunk test. We fill a 5 gallon bucket with tap water, gently place the phone at the bottom, and set the timer for 28 minutes. That’s long enough to stress the claim without trying to break the phone. Then we pull the phone out, let it dry overnight and inspect it for damage. Does it take a photo? Is there still water in the ports? Will it charge when you plug in the cable?
After the phone has completely dried (5 hours to overnight), we run through the process again.
It’s a simple, effective and repeatable test that our reviewers can conduct in any of our global offices. If a unit drowns, we’ll know.
That’s exactly what happened with this iPhone 8 phone that CNET purchased for our San Francisco office. I placed it side-by-side in the bottom of a bucket alongside the iPhone X and iPhone 8 Plus. 28 minutes later, all three phones came out.
The 8 Plus and iPhone X lived to dunk another day, but the iPhone 8 collected condensation behind the lens. After it dried, it did charge through the cable, but I was no longer able to access the home screen or any controls, even after a hard reboot. The phone then got caught in an endless reboot cycle, and at that point, I gave up trying to revive it.
After that, we bought a second iPhone 8, this time in black, and I ran the bucket test twice more over two days. Result: It’s completely fine. Meanwhile, the broken iPhone 8 is just as water-speckled as it ever was.
Apple’s water-resistance promise has a Catch-22
What does it all mean? Does Apple have a water-resistance problem? Keep calm. We’re not jumping to any conclusions over here. It’s very likely our waterlogged iPhone 8 is an anomaly, a singular dud that didn’t live up to the waterproofing promise, unlike a small batch of Samsung Galaxy S7 Active phones from 2016 that Samsung then fixed.
There is a takeaway, however, and that’s what to do if water damage happens to you. The short answer is that there’s not all that much you can do within warranty (but stick with me; you’re not totally out of options).
The funny thing about water-resistance is that even though there’s an implicit suggestion that phonemakers will stand by the IP rating, there’s also a lot of deferred responsibility. Just read the not-so-fine print.
For example, when I asked for comment about our busted iPhone 8, Apple pointed me to its support page which says that users shouldn’t purposely submerge any iPhone in water.
Apple also strongly advises against bringing a water-resistant iPhone into contact with chlorinated water (a pool), salt water (the ocean), high velocity water (the shower or jet skis) and taking it into a steam room.
But let’s be real: isn’t that peace of mind what a water-resistant phone is for? Accidents happen, and buyers will always want to bring their phone along to watery locales to take photos, check email and upload photos to Instagram and Facebook. We’ve been doing all this long before phones were waterproof, with much greater risk.
Source:-Â https://www.cnet.com/news/what-to-do-if-your-brand-new-iphone-drowns-like-ours-did/
