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Don't dry your iPhone in a bag of rice, says Apple (www.bbc.com) similar stories update story
6 points by vinni2 | karma 2956 | avg karma 3.46 2024-02-22 07:02:20 | hide | past | favorite | 46 comments



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The effectiveness of commercial desiccants and uncooked rice in removing moisture from hearing aids[1]:

"White rice shows promise as an effective alternative to commercial desiccants in reducing moisture in hearing aids when silica gel products are unavailable."

[1] https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/27869510/


That's on hearing aids not sure if this finding is transferrable to smartphones. Here is the recommendation from experts in fixing electronics https://www.ifixit.com/Wiki/Do_Not_Put_Your_Device_in_Rice

There’s probably a piece missing in the article’s simplified explanation, but if corrosion were in fact “instant” as claimed, nothing should help, as the damage would already be done. Probably it’s not really instant, just very fast, and displacing the water with alcohol is the quickest way to get it out before it can do even more damage.

> Open your device as soon as you can, take out the battery

Well. Fuck.


Explanation literally doesn't make sense.

I wonder if rice could be used to dry 3D printer filament? Can the rice be recharged by drying in the oven like silica gel?

You can place rice on a baking tray spread out very thin for a day or so. Also dry it in the sun for added effect.

If you have extra, then deep fry it. Great cheap crunchy addition to some meals. It’s a key ingredient in Thai rice salad, or “khao yum”.


Everytime I get anything with a bag of silica gel (electronic product boxes, medication bottles etc.), I toss the bag into an airtight plastic tub where I collect them. I've only needed to use the tub a few times, but it's always worked to remove moisture from electronic devices and cost me nothing.

You can also reuse them after they're saturated if you remove the moisture by heating them up.

I've been doing that for dry boxes to store 3D printing filaments for years.


Ive set my my oven to 125 - 175 degrees, then turn it off and put my phone, watch and even a PC in there to dry them out and dehumidify them for up to an hour. I then wait a day and then put them back to power. I’ve restored all non water proof devices this way so long as the battery doesn’t swell it seems to always work.

Celsius or Fahrenheit before people destroy their hardware?

Surely Fahrenheit, so as to not be above the boiling temperature of water.

I’m sure most of the world’s population has no idea what the boiling temperature of water is in Fahrenheit.

> even a PC in there

Wow your oven must be huge.


I assume by PC he means motherboard and components on the motherboard, not the whole case.

What gigantic PC do you own that doesn't fit in the oven? An entire server rack?

I have a standard PC, measures about 10 by 20 by 20 inches. I have never seen an oven in a residential building that can accommodate the whole thing.

All my ovens could fit my similarly sized PC. Both US and Europe.

Guess you guys have huge ovens over there. My bad, I've never seen one that big in India.

Your pizza must look for ants :(

My oven's interior is approximately 22x22x15 inches of usable space and is what I'd consider a very basic low-end oven in the united states.

Hmm, I think my Fractal Design Mini C micro-atx case could barely fit in oven, and very likely not... 40x40x21 has two dimensions at the limit...

I remember fixing a graphics card years ago in the oven. Stripped all the heatsink and other removable parts off it and baked it for 15 mins or so. It reflowed the solider joints nicely and worked for several years afterwards.


I honestly thought “That sounds really dangerous for the hardware”.

Why is a temperature conversion circular?!

Because the page is also about angles that are measured in degrees I think.

For drying, the airflow is much more important than temperature.

Apple: “Anything you do to salvage your phone that isn’t buying a new one isn’t a good idea.”

Wait, soon Apple will sell bags of rice for 50$, only compatible with iphones...

iRice

Warning: iRice is not compatible with MacRice, use proper Rice product to dry your device.

Their argument doesn't even make any sense - rice particles may damage your already damaged phone.


At no point does this article mention the minor detail that iPhones haven been completely waterproof for generations now.

Sorry, but you are wrong, IPhones is not waterproof, just water resistant. Put IPhone in a water for a day, it will not survive. https://support.apple.com/en-us/108039

Apparently many iPhones are fished out of water after 1 or more days and are still working fine.

Some even after some months (or even years IIRC but I can’t find the link) https://appleinsider.com/articles/21/08/03/iphone-recovered-...

I was thinking the same thing! I was washing my iphone under running (using soap) weekly during covid and have not had any issues. Like they say, try not to get it into the charging port, as you have to wait for it to dry out before plugging the phone into the charger.

It absolutely does mention that.

> That is because devices are increasingly able to withstand getting wet.

> All Apple devices from the iPhone 12 onwards are able to withstand immersion up to a depth of six metres, for up to half an hour.

> But with cost-of-living pressures driving growth in the global second-hand mobile market, it is likely that many people will need advice on what to do - and what not to - with a soggy smartphone for some time yet.


> iPhones haven been completely waterproof for generations now.

Maybe so but when I went into Apple store to get a free battery replacement under warranty because they had a recall, the Apple employees specifically check for water exposure[1] and if it's ever been wet, they consider it "damaged" and won't do the free battery swap.

It's nice that one can accidentally fall into a swimming pool with the phone in the pocket and it won't get broken. However, one can't be totally nonchalant about letting it get submerged because it will void its warranty status.

[1] https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT204104


You still need to rinse off the phone in fresh water after submerging in any water with salts or you can get corrosion.

When my daughter was a teenager she dropped her phone in the toilet and fished it out and put it in rice to dry. We didn’t see any rice in the trash, and so we continued to question her and it turned out she had simply returned the rice to the cabinet afterwards. :P We threw out the entire bag, of course.

Who would throw out perfectly good iRice

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