- Friday, 10 July 2009
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Simply put, you can't change a company without changing its management - Andy Grove - Only the Paranoid Survive
An Iphone is resurrected
IN A BRIEF POST Saturday at the US progressive website Daily Kos, the writer who goes by Scout Finch* tells "the tale of one tough little Iphone."
While traveling on business for several days, she was delighted to see that one of the hotels along the way had a laundry room. Since there was only a single washing machine available and she knew her co-workers would be checking in right behind her, she ran to her room and threw a load of laundry in the wash.
Then, thinking to call her co-workers, she found that her Iphone was missing.
"I felt a sickness in my stomach and I knew... my Iphone was in the washer. I've never run so fast in a pair of flip-flops in my life. I reached the washer, tossed open the lid, and saw the pants in question with a steady stream of water beating them down. Sure enough, the phone was in the pocket and completely submerged. The horror!"
The phone was waterlogged. She shook most of the water out but it was still wet, so she attempted to dry it out on her room's air conditioner vent for 16 hours, turning it occasionally. Then, quite curious and impatient, she hopefully plugged it in and turned it on. It powered up, but there was still water showing behind the screen and it wasn't working normally, so she quickly turned it off.
Still hopeful, she baked the Iphone on top of her car's dashboard for a day. A friend suggested placing it in rice to help absorb water, and she did that too.
When she tried to power up the phone again, it didn't. Not even a flicker of life.
"Distraught, I made an appointment for the Genius Bar at the Apple Store back home and tossed it in my bag for the last two days of the trip."
Inconvenienced by lack of a cellphone, she finally returned home at the end of her business travels.
"Still feeling defeated, I went directly from the airport to the Apple Store... expecting to hear the worst. After all, I hadn't been able to get any response or a hint of a pulse for days. The young Apple tech reached over, plugged it in and lo and behold... it was working! There was my graphic... my contacts... my calendar... my photos!"
The Apple techie was amazed to see that her Iphone was working again. They tested all the features and immediately backed up all its data to her Macbook.
We conjecture that a couple of more days in a travel bag, riding around in the heat of a car's boot, along with the extremely dry air inside the plane she took home, evaporated the last vestiges of water that remained inside her Iphone.
"So, let that be a lesson to all of you cell phone users out there... and Iphone users in particular. Never give up hope if your iPhone has been submerged. Exhibit patience. Get creative. Try the rice."
To which we might add, go ahead and do all that, but then also give it a couple more days tucked into a very dry place, and maybe take an airplane flight with the previously submerged device nestled inside your carry-on bag. µ
L'Inq
Daily
Kos
*Scout Finch was the young girl in the 1962 film 'To Kill a Mockingbird'.
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jesus brick does the lazerus
I'd keep trying if I'd blown $1000 on one too.
you call this news?

or even worth mentioning?

As long as nothing is damaged due to a short circuit, any device will work after it has been dried.
It's pretty good to know that you can submerge an iPhone in water and it still works after drying off. I'd be pretty upset if I'd forked out mega bucks for a phone and did something stupid like leaving it in my pockets of something being washed (I did the same with a Gameboy Tetris cartridge and that survived!).

Also reminds me of the time I dropped my mobile in the toilet, that still worked. Luckily I'd flushed the toilet before dropping the phone in there!

Rob
.... iPhone that could.

Damn I hate those things!
When we visited the Philippines last year, we purchased ultra-cheap Nokia 1100i mobes to support our local communications needs. One member of our party dropped their brand new $20 Nokia into the Lobok River on Bohol Island while crossing a wobbly pedestrian cable bridge. The locals fished it out of the river the next day in working condition.
my mothers nokia el cheapo 1600 fall in toilette. it was working with no problem under the water...then we turn it off and dry for an hour. my mother use it even today with no problem
I sunk my AT&T Tilt (HTC TyTN II) in a 44oz cup of water while driving, i didnt realize it was in the water for probably 8 to 10 minutes. frantically removed it from the cup, soaking myself in the process. I took the battery out, shook all the water out of it, turned my heater on and put it up on the dashboard vent. let it stay there for about 16 hours, keep the heat on while i drove. the next day, after letting it sit in the sun and heat of the arizona desert, i put the battery back in, turned it on and what do you know... it still works.


The lesson here... Iphone takes 4+ days to dry, AT&T Tilt 16 hours +/-
The pressure change on the plane was probably quite useful, also. Consider the cabin at 8000 ft cabin altitude (normal commercial airliner pressurization level) has about 75% of the pressure of sea level. Not only did the pressure cycle force air circulation through the iphone, the pressure change would have helped to evaporate the water. Those who don't remember their basic physics/chemistry can find a nice discussion of partial pressures at (of course) wikipedia:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Partial_pressure
In times past when dusty mothers boards
were covered by dusts of the life.
Fast cleaning is found in dishwasher
where plates dwell with the forks.
All drying is needed then boards work great
no damage from wet water.
Special eye pod is not so special. This is publicity most public. Smelly.
"The young Apple tech reached over, plugged it in and lo and behold... it was working!"

Praise be! It's a miracle! And so on. Surely if there's a Jesus element to all this, it's the Apple tech who, by a mere laying on of hands, resurrected the defunct device.
In terms of the Jesus/ Apple angle, isn´t the Apple supposed to represent the Fall of Man? I think in the Bible, it´s simply referred to as ¨the fruit.¨ But at some point it became referred to as an apple.

I´m not suggesting anything(or am I? ;) ), just mentioning it.
I don't buy those 'you can wash electronics just fine in water' stories for any amount of time. About as convincing as the notion you'll be fine after taking a bungee jump with only one leg attached to the cord - suuuure just cause all the newspapers and TV said it was done that way.
Yes, I know you say you dry them, but I'll bet you don't bother revealing later what went wrong with the device; I bet they die & you try to put it down to some other cause.

I'll take my chances with a dusty old board anyday - worst: the dust might heat the components up a bit more, being settled upon them...but, the fact that it is dusty means it hasn't been disturbed or moved around much, maybe hasn't even been touched at all by any non-ESD fingers. Clean that with the right brush / canned air, and you run no chance of disturbing any components or ESD-cracking.

Water, being a conductor of electricity, will short out anything electrical - if it is turned on when submerged or wet. Otherwise overclockers would have filled their boxes up with ice by now & water-coolers wouldn't ever need to worry about condensation.
There seem to be a bundle of robust little phones (and other devices) however, probably having the kind of casing features that the likes of underwater cameras have.

On the interesting Apple / Tree of Knowledge angle; well it is said that the idea for the original Apple personal computer was inspired by an LSD trip - as was much else of the fruit of Silicon Valley.