After years of customers doing it anyway, Apple has lastly revealed steerage confirming that placing your iPhone in a bag of rice is not a good way to cope with liquid getting inside your telephone.
In an replace to the “liquid-detection alert” help web page (thanks, Macworld), Apple now states, below the part about what to not do, “Do not put your iPhone in a bag of rice. Doing so may permit small particles of rice to wreck your iPhone.”
It is much less of a problem with more moderen iPhones, which have been waterproofed for as much as thirty minutes in as much as 6 meters of water for a couple of years, however Apple now recommends simply tapping your telephone towards your hand to shake water unfastened, then ready half-hour earlier than making an attempt to cost.
If that does not work, depart it to dry and take a look at once more after 24 hours, Apple says. Except for rice, the corporate additionally recommends avoiding cotton swabs or paper towels.
Why use a bag of rice when repairing an iPhone?
A kind of “tech hack city legend”, many customers (myself included) have felt the pang of dread when realizing there’s water inside your machine, and positioned it in a bowl of rice to dry out.
The reason being that rice grains soak up liquids rapidly, and on some events may also help dry the internals to the purpose the place a telephone is usable once more.
The brand new steerage from Apple, nonetheless, means that this might trigger extra hurt than good – though some customers really feel this might be a extra cynical transfer.
Over on r/devices, one person joked “Cease placing your iPhones in rice, simply purchase a brand new one” whereas one other mockingly stated “It is official. The last decade-long method all of us used in some unspecified time in the future, one way or the other, magically stopped working for iPhones.”
One other requested, “Will the rice do roughly harm than the bathroom water my telephone sat in for 8 seconds whereas I panicked attempting to determine what to do?”
That is one thing solely you may reply, pal.
