05. September 2010 · 1 comment · Categories: Uncategorized · Tags: ,

Right after I hit “Publish Post” on that Labor Day blog post below, something dreadful happened.

I got up from my spot on the couch where I do my blogging, walked to the half bath just outside the family room, and prepared to go to the bathroom. Before I could get started (thankfully!) my iPhone fell out of the front pocket of my shorts and I heard the “Plop!”.

Oh F-U-D-G-E.

As quickly as humanly possible, I fished my phone out of the bowl, wiped it with a towel and ran back to the laptop by the couch to Google “wet iphone”.

Go ahead, Google it yourselves and see what you get…

Mostly blog posts about (a) how to dry off a wet iPhone and (b) how to scam the Apple Store into pretending your phone didn’t get wet to get a free replacement.

The phone was still on while I was reading all this…but the screen had become VERY dark.  Not off, but really dark.  I tried to make a phone call, but the phone was indicating that the SIM card was missing.

Quick!  Remove the SIM card!

I found my can of compressed air and blasted some of the moisture out of the bottom port, the top headphones and SIM port and around the home button.

The next step was to store the phone in a container filled with uncooked rice.  Just immerse the phone into the rice.  You have to be disciplined to not turn on the phone (and risk shorting out the circuits) and let the rice do its work drawing the moisture out of the interior of the phone.

So that’s where we stand right now.  I made an appointment at the Apple Store for tomorrow afternoon to investigate a replacement just in case the rice doesn’t work out…

UPDATE: The phone has been sitting in the rice for 9 hours.  I misbehaved and turned on the phone just now and Dave and I made a test call.  It all seemed to work.  Whoo hoo, right?

No…the home button still doesn’t work.  In order to attempt another App, I had to power off the phone, then power it back on to return to the home screen.  Then I could check out the iPod feature (which worked) and a couple of the apps.

It’s back in the rice for the night.  It has 12 more hours before I have to decide on attempting to replace it altogether.