iPhone 3G swims and SURVIVES!! – update 2

My Australia Day was spent hanging out with friends. Of course there was the standard BBQ with triple J’s hottest 100 countdown playing in the background, then came the swimming.

After a couple of minutes in the pool my hand brushed by my pocket, yep.. I had taken my iPhone for a swim.

Expecting my iPhone to be completely screwed, I figured what the heck I’ll see if there was any chance of saviour. This is the Jesus phone right ?

The plan was to let the phone completely dry out over a few days. I was careful not to press any buttons in fear of waking the screen and shorting the battery. Unfortunately without a removable battery, there was no way I could stop people from calling or texting me. After the first day, there was still clearly water sitting under the screen. I removed the sim card and sat it outside today. Turns out 40+ degree days are good for something.

Honestly expecting the chance of my iPhone still working to be 0%, I had already called Optus to see how much  a replacement was – A$899 for those of you playing at home.

Turns out the iPhone went for a swim and SURVIVED !!

Naturally there is some visible water damage to the screen, which actually looks like a funky background (unfortunately behind every screen, which does suck for photos), but generally usable. It’s actually looks worse in the pics because they were taken off angle, from directly above it’s not bad.

I checked the functionality one by one, touch screen – check, speaker – check, GPS, Wifi – check, phone calls – check.. Unbelievable !!

I’m blown away that after spending a couple of minutes under water the iPhone managed to survive.. for now anyway. It’ll be interesting to see if there’s any long-term effects. I’ll keep you posted.

Update
Turns out the iPhone’s recovery was short lived, although still impressive. At lunch time today my iPhone finally gave up.

Naturally I went straight out and bought a new one. $899 later, I now have a black 16GB iPhone 3G.

Update 2
Well truly like the jesus phone it is, my iPhone is back from the dead. After leaving it off for another couple of days, I figured what the heck, I’ll try it one more time. The damn thing turned on !!

Even more surprising is the screen had dried out even more, now you wouldn’t even know it’s been in water. So with an 2nd iPhone what was I to do ? Answer: Jailbreak it.

It’s been an interesting experience, quite easy, and something I’ll probably write a separate blog post about.

Author: Jason Cartwright

Founder of techAU