I dropped my iphone in the toilet
Not really, but it's the search term I used to seek examples of people with catastrophic experiences with their mobile devices - what more catastrophic than an iphone in the crapper? - and Google claimed to find 5.9 million instances. It petered out after less than 500 links, actually, but that's still a lot of Jobsian slips.
And what's double disturbing is that the very first thing you should do if your phone is immersed in liquid, whether of the i-variety or otherwise, is to get it out as quickly as possible.
Be not afraid, or squeamish but reach right in there - dig around if you must - and drag it back to dry land.
With most phones, you have between 15 and 20 seconds to get them out of the drink before the water or whatever reaches the innards. And it's usually deep trouble if that happens.
Is it pooched?
Probably. But no matter what your reptilian brain says, DO NOT TURN IT ON. Instead, remove the battery. DO THAT NOW.
Whew. We can relax a bit.
The worst possible thing that could have happened if you'd tried to turn on your phone or other mobile device now is that it would work. For about a millisecond. Before it fried itself.
Now take the rest of the phone apart - the pieces that come off or out easily, like any covers, the SIM card or memory cards. If you have access to compressed air, you can use it to carefully blow moisture out of crevices. Use a soft cloth or paper towels (not facial tissue - it often has talcum powder which can scratch screens) to pat down water. Shake moisture from openings.
If the liquid wasn't plain water - coffee, juice, salt water, etc. - then you'll need to flush your device with distilled water. If you're shop savvy, you could also use denatured alcohol. It's reportedly an ideal cleanser for salt water immersions. (This isn't rubbing alcohol - that can leave too much of a residue. But it can be good to do some edge and keyboard cleaning with a Qtip.)
The next step is to dry everything out. Completely. And the best tool here is patience. It can take a week or more for a seriously immersed phone or MP3 player to completely dry out.
Some folks talk up uncooked rice (it absorbs the moisture that evaporates from the phone), others like silica crystals in plastic bags, while others prefer blow dryers.
My preferred tool is patience.
Can the other approaches work? Sometimes. Don't heat batteries, though: they can blow up on you. And don't put electronic devices in the microwave. Just throw them away and save the electricity.
If you do want to speed up the process, put the device on a rack in the path of cool breeze from an air conditioning unit. This air is very dry and will hasten the drying process without putting any undue strain on the components.
Can the phone company or computer shop tell if the phone's been wet? Yes. Devices have built-in moisture detectors, and technicians can spot breaches in seconds.
So before you cough up for a hefty repair bill or the cost of a new phone, just wait a bit longer. You want it to be completely, entirely dry.
Now plug in the battery. Which may have zero charge. And try to turn the phone on. (Don't forget to put your SIM card back into your phone.) If nothing happens, try plugging the device into a charger. The battery might be dead, so a new battery may get your phone working again.
If that doesn't work, you can usually move your SIM card to another phone on your carrier's network and have access to some of your data.
And that brings us to the crux of the problem if your phone or PDA takes a bath: it's not the device, it's the data. The phone numbers and notes and logs of meetings and documents and photos and all the other things we carry around in our pockets these days.
So tell me this: When was the last time you backed up your phone?
-g
