Water Damaged iPhone
It seems that most people search the internet first when the phone is dropped in water, OK, I dropped in water “but look its still working”, believe me the water is still in there, and corrosion starts immediately. OK you can put in a bag of rice for a week, sure it will help to dry it out, but it may dry out in a week anyway. What you are doing is allowing the corrosion to really set in and loosing the opportunity to repair it. I had a client who dropped his phone in a bucket of water, it fell out of his top pocket, an hour later I opened the phone to find corrosion had already started.
The best thing to do is get it to someone who can open the phone disconnect the battery and dry the phone as quickly as possible. If we are specifically talking iPhones and iPhone 4/4S they are not easy to open unless you have the correct tools, while you are waiting to obtain the tools it would have dried by itself. If you cannot open the phone immediately, shake out as much water as possible (through the dock / power connector) then put it in a warm place, leave there it overnight, I will leave you work out how to do this, ducked heating vents are a good option direct sunlight on a hot day (if you do use an oven wrap it up in a towel and have the heat set to 100º C, allow the oven to reach its temperature then turn it off, leave it for half an hour, this may not dry it completely but will dry out most of the water. If you have a gas oven let the oven reach its temperature turn it off then put the phone in. Be extremely careful if you try this method, we cannot accept any responsibility if anything goes wrong.
Don’ts
Don’t switch it on, if its on try to turn it off, if the touch screen does not work leave it alone follow my recommendations above.
Don’t connect to the power ever. Don’t wait around even if it is working get someone to open it and dry it out ASAP.
Repairing water damaged iPhones
There is no telling weather a phone can be completely repaired I have a process I put them through and replace certain parts if it works great if not I discuss other options.
IPhone back up
It is a good idea to regularly back up your iPhone. Just connecting the phone to iTunes does not back it up it just syncs the iPhone. To back it up connect to iTunes click on the picture of the iPhone top right of the screen then select backup to this computer. It will backup everything except maybe som apps including pictures. It is also a good idea to down load your pictures to your computer.
Updating the software
If the phone is working well and you have had no issues, then don’t update the software. If you do decide to update Back it up first. If the software is a much earlier version and you update it you may not be able to restore it from your backup once you have updated the software. Things do go wrong with the update. They do believe me.
Unlocked iPhones
Commonly know as Jail Breaking. This is a 2-stage process, the first step is to Jail Break it to allow you to use unauthorised Apps on you iPhone or iPad, the second is to unlock the phone from your carrier. If you have unlocked your iPhone restoring from iTunes in the normal way will remove both steps. If you have unlocked your iPhone you probably understand all this, if in doubt, then don’t do it. There is a lot of information on the Internet, so do your research, the software is free so don’t pay for it. Some unlocking especially the iPhone 4 is only a tethered unlock which means once the iPhone goes flat you will need to run the program again you will not be able to connect to your carrier of choice.
Recovering data
I have been able to do this in the passed but it is expensive so I usually discuss the option with the client first.
If anyone has more tips forward them to me at www.iPhonesrepaired.com.au and I will add them to the help section.