I have drowned my iPhone - is there any hope?

[basildonbond]

Whenever I've heard about people dropping their phone in the toilet I've always thought "what kind of fool would do that?" ... Well it turns out it's this sort of fool

I fished it out immediately (and the water was clean ) but as I was trying to turn it off the screen started fading out with lines developing on it :(. It's now sitting in a bowl of rice and I am keeping everything crossed. Is there anything else I can do?

It is insured, however it's the free insurance that came with my bank account and first of all I have to send the claim form in, then they get back to me and ask me to send the phone in so they can attempt to repair it and only then will they replace. This will all take about two weeks - arrrggghhhh

My immediate problem - apart from having no phone - is that I've applied for a job I really want and will find out on Monday or Tuesday if I've been called for an interview. I don't know if they'll email or phone - I would have thought phone? And the only number they have is my mobile of course

If it doesn't come back to life what do I do? Risk looking very needy and call them and say I've been a complete idiot, do you still want to employ me??

[taxi4ballet]

Have you taken the sim card and the battery out?

[Iloveweetos]

Apparently putting it in a bowl of rice helps get moisture out? Not sure how true it is but if it was me I'd try anything

[Jumblebee]

Take the sim out and make sure it's dry, turn it off and leave it in the bag of rice for at least 24 hours. I dropped mine in the bath and miraculously it still works! Which is great, because I don't have insurance for it

[Greaterthanthesumoftheparts]

The rice should dry it out nicely and it may be usable again, my iPhone 3 was fine after a swim in a clean toilet followed by the rice treatment. In the meanwhile do you have an old phone around? The SIM card may be fine, alternatively are you easily able to get a new SIM card from your network provider?? I'm not in the uk but I know that my network provider has shops here and I can go in and buy a sim only quite cheaply that I can then put in an old phone. That might solve your potential interview problem.

[Hassled]

I think you need to call the job people in the meantime and tell them the phone's out of action (don't mention the loo bit) so please could they email/ring the landline. That's not going to seem needy at all - it'll seem proactive and efficient.

[MrsWickens]

Big bowl of rice and leave it alone - do not keep checking it - just leave it to dry out. Completely cover the phone in rice.

Whatever you do don't try and dry it with a hairdryer or anything else like that.

[basildonbond]

Thank you for all the advice

I'd just bunged it in a bowl of rice straight away without taking the sim out - is it worth taking it out now or would it be better just to leave it at this stage?

[Jumblebee]

I would take it out, if there's water on it it may damage it more so best to dry it off. I didn't actually take mine out until after my phone finished it's rice bath. It was working fine apart from not having any signal (so was just a very expensive camera!) until I took the sim out and dried it off. Then it was up and working again! I hope your phone manages to survive

[taxi4ballet]

DD's friend once dropped hers in a stream, they left it in a bowl of rice in their airing cupboard for a week, and that did the trick

[WottaMess]

Dim and battery out then bowl of rice and airing cupboard - good luck.

[WottaMess]

Dim = sim

[OiGiveItBack]

Is it working???

Can you try the sim in another phone?

[curiousgeorgie]

I can hopefully reassure you that the rice bowl brought my iPhone 4 back from the dead after its trip down the toilet bowl...

I took the sim out but left the battery in and left it in there for a whole day.

[OiGiveItBack]

Phew!

[basildonbond]

Phew, phew, phew! My phone survived - yay . It's had a rice bath since Thursday morning, took it out just now and hey presto, it's back

Thanks for all the tips

[NoelleHawthorne]

Mine was the same.now works. Dunno how it affects the rice though ;)

[basildonbond]

I've binned the rice

[NoelleHawthorne]

Lol I ate it!!

[Hullabalooey]

Sadly this happened to me and I did the bowl of rice thing (even put the bowl in the airing cupboard to keep it warm!) but the phone was dead
Took it to the Apple store and they said they can tell when it's got water damage - apparently some indicator inside goes pink (?) so there's no pretending it just stopped working! (Which I didn't btw! )

[OiGiveItBack]

I save all the silica gel sachets just in case I drop my iPhone in water. I have a big bag of them now. I think you can pop them in the microwave to reactivate them - (to make sure they don't have any moisture in them )