iPhone stupidity. (or "Denial, It's not just a river in Egypt anymore")

[Mongo Skruddgemire]

So I have a friend of mine who just bought a new iPhone 4S with his Verizon account. Couldn't afford the 5 but they were offering the 4S at a discount at her work.

She dropped into the sink as she was washing some delicates.

She asked me what to do and I gave her some advice. Power off the phone and stick it into some rice for now, go out and buy the silica gel kitty litter and dunk the phone in that to remove the moisture.

She did that and left the phone in for three days. The phone didn't come on but flashed the "Low Battery Icon". So she put it on the charger and 24 hours later she stopped even getting the LBI. Nothing would happen, nothing would flash.

Naturally I tell her that with a wet phone your greatest chance of successfully resurrecting a drowned rat of a phone (and the odds are not in your favor at all) involve taking out the battery to keep stray voltages from arcing across places that they're not supposed to go and that by opening up the phone you're allowing more moisture to escape more quickly. But with the factory sealed and the non-user-serviceable nature of the iPhone...you're really facing long odds.

"Sorry, the phone is borked." I say.

"But the phone works! It's just not charging!" she tearfully replies.

If it's not coming on after being on the charger for 24 hours it's one of four things. It's either...

1. The charger which is unlikely since it didn't fall into the sink and I verified was working when I plugged MY iPhone 4s into it.

Leaving us to conclude that it's either...

2. The battery is toast
3. The charging circuit is toast
4. The phone as a whole is toast

"But it worked, it just didn't have the power to come on!"

"If it's not coming on, HOW DO YOU KNOW IT STILL WORKS!?!?"

Seriously. Without the ability to swap batteries from my working iPhone 4S (without the super secret squirrel tools) to her questionable iPhone 4S, therei is no way of knowing if the damage is limited to the battery/charging subsystem or if the phone is a brick.

So now she tears into me for not helping her save what may be un-savable and she drops the "This is all your fault" card onto the table.

I reply "Well I'm not the dumbass who dropped it out of my tits and into a sink full of panties and Woolite!"

I fear I lost a friend. I fear that I may not even care if I'm going to catch hell for not being able to fix something that was not may fault to begin with.

[Kheldarson]

I reply "Well I'm not the dumbass who dropped it out of my tits and into a sink full of panties and Woolite!"

*snerk*

I'm sorry; the image that line gives me....

Your friend's deep in denial, Mongo. Give her some time and she might come out of it. You might even get an apology!

Or...she'll just keep blaming you anyway. But you didn't do anything wrong.

[Ginger Tea]

I didn't even know of these rescue options, I just assumed due to its sealed nature that you might as well suck up a substantial financial loss.
Mine was £Whatever on a plan years ago (oct 2010 I think) vs £RRP, I was already on a plan so all I had to do was renew for 18 months. but without insurance, I think I would have to pay £RRP to get that model back.

so is it all your fault cos your remedies didn't work, or is it your fault cos she dropped it in the first place, I'm thinking the latter, but CS posts have shown that someone having X fixed will scream to the tech/mechanic/plumber that them fixing X is the reason Y is now broken, especially if Y is a totally different piece of equipment that was never seen let alone serviced.

Least you didn't say to put it in the microwave like that battery extender hoax.

[Mongo Skruddgemire]

I didn't even know of these rescue options, I just assumed due to its sealed nature that you might as well suck up a substantial financial loss.

It's a longshot at best for a normal phone that you can open and get the battery out in time. I think the odds are 1-in-100 that recover to being functional (and I hear that most of those are never *quite* right and have quirks).

And it's one of those things. If it works, great. If not you're no more or less @#$%ed than you were when you started...save maybe being out $5 for the silica gel (that has many uses other than kitty litter).

Least you didn't say to put it in the microwave like that battery extender hoax.

I shudder to think how many people fell for that and ended up setting their phones on fire damaging it, their microwaves, and possibly their homes.

Lithium Ion Batteries are not happy getting nuked. I've seen the youtube vid of the guys that take dodgy microwaves and nuke anything and everything to see what happens...it's very energetic.

I'm laying odds that video involved a microwave with a non-functional magnetron. It would light up, the fans would spin, the carousel would rotate, the timer would countdown...not nary a microwave would be emitted.

*snerk*

I'm sorry; the image that line gives me....

Well she did have the habit of using her cleavage as a purse (something that is not pleasant for store clerks on CS.com) and as a phone holder and she frequently shops at the local "Fredericks" and spends more on knickers than I spend on my entire wardrobe.

So it just slipped out of my mouth.

[HYHYBT]

If she were as clumsy with its camera as someone I know is with her Samsung, she would quit putting the phone in there.

[s_stabeler]

um, the iPhone 4s is NOT factory-sealed. The super-secret tools required to open one? a tiny screwdriver (the screws are either side of the charging port, you need to look carefully for them) and a glorified lever.
instructions for replacing the iPhone 4s battery it's actually ipods and Ipads that are factory sealed, NOT iPhones. ( and it's not actually that difficult to open an iPod or iPad to replace the battery either. AFAIK, it's the same tool)

your friend's iPhone is still borked though. ( funnily enough, it IS possible to use water on an iPhone w/o borking it- turn it off first. ( the cleaning fluids you can buy for the screen are mostly water & either soap or alcohol)

[draco664]

I fear I lost a friend. I fear that I may not even care if I'm going to catch hell for not being able to fix something that was not may fault to begin with.

You can't lose what you did not have to begin with. Someone who blames you for not being able to fix something they broke is not a friend.

[LadyBarbossa]

It goes back to what you originally said - you're not the one who dropped a brand new phone into a sink full of water. This is no one's fault but her own. How she blames you is beyond me

I don't understand why she had to have it with her while she was doing laundry. When I'm at home, I do well to even have the thing in the same room, unless I'm expecting a call or text from someone. The only time I remember putting it down my shirt was when I was at a night club and it kept coming off my hip.

Anywho, an intelligent person would have either popped that sucker into some rice ASAP, at least Googled 'iPhone in water', or taken it back to the store where they got it to see if anything could be done. I hope she had insurance, which, guessing by the tantrum, she didn't.

[ozcatbug]

um, the iPhone 4s is NOT factory-sealed. The super-secret tools required to open one? a tiny screwdriver (the screws are either side of the charging port, you need to look carefully for them) and a glorified lever.
instructions for replacing the iPhone 4s battery it's actually ipods and Ipads that are factory sealed, NOT iPhones. ( and it's not actually that difficult to open an iPod or iPad to replace the battery either. AFAIK, it's the same tool)

your friend's iPhone is still borked though. ( funnily enough, it IS possible to use water on an iPhone w/o borking it- turn it off first. ( the cleaning fluids you can buy for the screen are mostly water & either soap or alcohol)

As a major coincidence, I just happen to work for the games store that was formerly a boutique in the tech department. We repair all consoles and idevices (and in the past week samsung galaxy sII and sIII's) that are traded in from all stores in Australia. A few months back we had a group from the US that visited to see what, in their words, was "the world's best idevice repair operation." Yeah, shocked us too.

For the past 2 months I have been working with our iDevice team repairing iPhones. The tool needed to open the screws at the base of most 4's, and all 4s and 5's is a tiny 5 point star tool. After you have removed the 2 screws on either side of the charge port the back can slide up and be removed (it will be tight the first time it is removed). Once it is open, you need a #000 sized phillips head screwdriver. (I noticed in the video link that was posted, which is for a 4 not a 4s, they suggested a #00, but that is too big for most of the screws.) iPhone 3 and some 4's just need the #000 phillips instead of the star screwdriver. As for iPad and iPod's, those I wouldn't even attempt home repair. They don't use the 5 point star but they use superglue or araldite. They are a bitch to repair at work with the correct tools supplied, so I don't want to even attempt it at home. The iPhone 5's are also not something I would attempt at home.

Just a note that if you do open an iPhone or any iDevice, please keep note of where each screw and component goes. We use a plastic tray with a complete layout of where each screw goes. Even after 2 months repairing over 10 phones a day, I still use the tray as each screw is a different size, and some screws are necessary if you want to actually use the repaired phone, if it is indeed repairable. I can't tell you how many phones we get in each day that have been obviously "dad repaired" with the antenna not connected, or the wi-fi screw missing. A simple replacement of the screw or part and a broken phone is now sellable.

It will be glaringly obvious from taking the back off if there is damage to the phone. The moisture indicator will be bright red, and if you are lucky (or is that unlucky) there might be visible corrosion on the motherboard. The corrosion will probably look like a pale green or white build up, and will be most obvious on the many ribbons or around the battery. Since this phone did start charging but then stopped, I would guess the corrosion would be around the battery connection. There are two screws holding the battery to the motherboard, so undo those, and put them aside. The battery connection on the 4s is tighter than the 4 (which can be released with a finger nail). You will need some tweezers, or even use a small flat screwdriver, to prise the battery ribbon up. Under the battery ribbon at the upper screw point there will be a black thing (don't know what it's called). Put this aside and make sure that it goes back on otherwise your iPhone will become an iPod touch, with no ability to ring out.

If there is visible corrosion on the battery terminal, you could try some metho or some sort of cleaning spirits. The alcohol will evaporate and do no damage to the motherboard or components. Just put some metho (or spirit of choice) on a cotton bud, tip or whatever you have and try to remove the corrosion. This is a stopgap only. Once a board is corroded, there is no stopping it, but I have seen some really badly corroded boards that still work. It will at least buy time until a replacement is purchased.

Beyond that I could suggest searching youtube for some clips on repairing phones, but my professional opinion is the phone is dead. And if your friend keeps insisting that it started charging, that is just the result of the corrosion building up from the initial soak, finally killing the phone. Moisture and electronics is bad. As they say "It won't happen overnight, but it will happen."

[Nekojin]

A bit of anecdotal data - the moisture indicator doesn't have to get wet for the phone to be wrecked by moisture. I had a phone that I accidentally left in my pants pocket (instead of moving it to my jacket pocket, which is waterproof) when I went on a water ride at Disneyland. The pocket didn't get soaked, but it did get some water on it, and I didn't think anything of it... until the phone simply stopped working, with a bright red screen. And, upon arriving home, Andara told me that the phone had somehow dialed Andara's cell phone, and she heard me haggling with someone over some trading pins.

When we took it to the T-Mobile store to see about getting a replacement, they promptly opened the phone up to check the moisture indicator, and that was still plain white, not triggered at all. But the phone was still toast, and the cause was still moisture inside.

[HYHYBT]

Likewise, it should be possible for the moisture indicator to have picked up moisture without its interfering with anything functional.