It seems that most people search the internet first when the phone is dropped in water.
“OK, I dropped it in water, but look it’s still working” – Believe us, 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. A client brought us an iPhone which he had in a bag of rice for 4 days, there was still water in it when it was opened. What you are doing is allowing the corrosion to really set in and losing the opportunity to repair it. We had a client who dropped his phone in a bucket of water, it fell out of his top pocket – an hour later when opened the phone we found corrosion had already started. Anywhere there is electricity and water, corrosion will start immediately.
Oven-drying
Shake out as much water as possible (through the dock / power connector). Wrap it up in a small towel and have the oven heat set to 80º – 100º C. In an electric oven, place the towel-wrapped phone in the oven and leave it for half an hour. 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. You can tell it is done when the phone is almost to hot to handle.
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 our 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 whether a phone can be completely repaired. We have a process we put them through and replace certain parts – if it works great, if not we discuss other options.