If your phone gets wet, it may not be dead in the water

On a lake trip over July 4th weekend, my daughter’s iPhone 7 Plus ended up taking a dive. It was found in about 3 feet of water 24 hours later, still working but with some permanent damage. The experience provided a few lessons.

Immersion in water used to ruin a cellphone. That’s less true today because many newer phones are “water-resistant," but they are still not “waterproof.” Water-resistant phones are only designed to survive underwater for a while, under certain conditions. And most cellphone warranties still don’t cover water damage.

What can you expect from a phone that has spent some time underwater? Amazingly, my daughter’s phone emerged from the lake with its screen glowing and it still worked — mostly. That was especially surprising considering that the iPhone 7 Plus is an “older” device and its water-resistant qualities are less robust than today’s phones. Apple said the phone can withstand 30 minutes in 3 feet of water, but it actually survived 48 times that long.

While that was impressive, the iPhone still had problems:

The phone’s camera suffered the most. Some moisture had gotten inside, which meant the camera took hazy photos. This seemed to improve when the iPhone had been dry a while, but then the haziness returned. The camera is the most vulnerable part of a phone, and even a tiny bit of water will ruin it.

The phone’s touch screen was initially a bit sluggish, and sometimes did things that it hadn't been asked to do. But after a few days in dry air, the touch screen worked fine.

At first, the phone’s screen was “jumpy” and the phone would shut down unexpectedly. This was probably because moisture had affected the battery. (It could easily be restarted by plugging it in). But those problems also disappeared in a few days.

The phone’s cellular and Wi-Fi connections worked perfectly.

My daughter’s chief concern was whether she could retrieve the thousands of photos stored on the phone. Fortunately, the phone’s flash memory was unaffected, and all the photos were still there.

As it turned out, my daughter’s photos had been backed up earlier to iCloud, Apple’s online service — but only because she had paid extra for enough online storage to hold thousands of photos. If your phone has a lot of photos, think about whether you have backed them up — before your phone goes swimming.