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What Has Your Phone Survived?
NotAnIndividual writes "On an ice fishing trip two months ago, I lost my iPhone somewhere in the snow. I searched and searched, but to no avail. But just this weekend when moving the ice hut, lo and behold there it was. I quickly threw it into a bag of rice and placed it under a lamp to defrost. Three hours later I plugged it in. I wasn't expecting much. I mean, really, it had been frozen in snow for the last two months! To my surprise, the Apple logo popped up. I put in the SIM card and voila, my iPhone was back. My apps, my contacts, my music and more importantly my life were back. And this is the same iPhone that I dropped in a cup of coffee a few months ago! This got me wondering how much damage a cell phone can actually take. How have other Slashdot users punished their phones without actually killing them completely?"
news day?
I lost my iPhone while skiing on Mt Hood slopes in February last year. In July I got an email from someone that he had found the phone, charged it and retrieved my email account for it. I let him have it since my insurance had already replaced it.
but if I did, I'd probably leave it in the stove, and the next day is wouldn't be burnt at all and would work perfectly.
Similar to your story I was out shoveling snow one day last winter... and after I was done my iPhone was missing.
I tracked it down in the tracks of my truck -- I'd moved it to finish shoveling and driven over my phone. As in your case all was fine -- didn't break the screen and it's been working just fine for at least a year since then.
My apps, my contacts, my music and more importantly my life were back.
You should really see a dotor about your addiction. I mean, seriously, that's just a phone!
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I had their flip phone from about 4-5 years ago. After about a year the texting got quite difficult as the buttons started to stick and it became difficult to text quickly. One day when I was filling up my car with gas I put my phone on the hood of my car for some reason and then drove off. I realized about 5 minutes later and drove back and someone had run over it. It actually worked BETTER than before as the buttons no longer stuck. It was pretty scratched up though. Later that year in the winter I was digging my car out of the snow on a warm day and it fell out of my pocket and into a giant puddle of water.I took it out, turned it off and let it dry for a day or two near a heat source and it still works to this day. Sweet phone, and if anyone else has this phone and the buttons stick, run it over with your car.
How do you drop an iPhone into a cup of coffee? The thing is barely small enough to fit into a duffel bag, let alone a cup of warm beverage.
Hard core coffee drinkers have huge mugs and for some reason they don't like to wash them either.
There's practically no difference between being frozen for one day, or arbitrarily long. There are only two dangers: contraction of metal and joints while freezing; and condensation/expansion while thawing. I'm sure the rice helped with the condensation, although putting it under a lamp couldn't have helped; better to warm it as slowly as possible.
"They were pure niggers." – Noam Chomsky
Phones break from physical impact(shattering LCD and stuff), or from short circuits.. or from component failure(caps blowing, overheating, etc). TECHNICALLY you can drop a running circuit into *PURE* water and nothing happens. Water isn't very conductive. FYI
So basically, -1 troll/offtopic is really slashdots way of saying "I hate that you thought of something before me."
slashdot is mirroring the crazy awesome friday night conversation i'm having at the bar with all my male friends *right now*! and there's no girls here either!
slashdot: where everyone yells sarcastic metaphors to themselves to understand the issue
I'm *so* glad your iphone survived. Thanks for sharing your inspiring story with us, I can sleep easy tonight knowing full well that another iphone owner out there has found another way to talk about his iphone on slashdot. Thank you, thank you for this.
Realized the iphone didn't have a drive I could mount, Safari didn't have flash, no voice recognition... a battery that can't get through The Dark Knight...
Laid it down on the basement floor and pissed on it.
Still running. Didn't help at all.
Mike
-- Karma whore? You betcha. --
I was on the third floor of an apartment building, taking pictures of the moon from a balcony when I dropped my Nexus 1. I watched it fall two floors before bouncing two or three times on to another roof, landing in a large puddle under and an extractor fan. I figure it would be dead and climbed down to recover my SIM card. After about 10 minutes of fishing around under the extractor fan in a 4+ inch deep puddle I recovered it, it was still on and in camera mode, not even a scratch on the case. I wiped it off and it's been working fine with no side effects from the fall and bath.
M0571y H@rml355.
I once took my cell phone scuba diving. It was a couple of years ago at White Star Quarry in Ohio. I was having trouble donning my rented wet suit and forgot my cell was in my swim trunks pocket. I did not even notice it until we were on our safety stop, which is where you stop on your way back to the surface for a few minutes ease decompressing. So that was 40-some minutes submerged in water up to 50 feet deep.
Miraculously after drying out the phone worked just fine.
Does browsing Slashdot count?
Maybe hosting a popular story that's linked to on slashdot would be a more appropriate test.....
"City hall" in German is "Rathaus" Kinda explains a few things......
My stories don't involve cell phones but it's devices of about equivalent size. And are from a different era.
I used to work at a medical device manufacturer that made TENS units. I worked in the Reliability Lab and my bench was across the room from the guy who serviced all the field return units.
He would occasionally get back devices that had fairly 'interesting' stories behind them. In that era, for the price we charged for the units, they came with a lifetime warranty. And the circuit boards were conformal-coated so it really was possible to offer that sort of warranty. Returned units might sometimes need the pots and connectors replaced, seldom more than that.
But the occasional unit would have a note attached. Like the unit that came back with a note that said 'Unit fell in a bucket of liquid feces.' Or the unit that came back completely filled with dried blood.
Both units were serviced and returned at no cost to the customer, BTW.
My iPhone 2G has survived almost three years of AT&T's spotty reception, their failure to offer a reasonably priced rate plan for people who don't talk much but need data service, their woeful customer service, and their lack of 3G coverage outside metropolitan areas. Other than that, it's been very enjoyable.
Sent from my iPhone
I know it's not a phone, but someone in my scout troop brought his zune 120 on a campout and accidentally left it out on a bench the night it rained. After finding it in a small pool of water, he turned it on to find that it still worked like new.
Cooking isn't just about putting water in things, you know...
Also, rice does indeed appear to be a desiccant, just not as strong a desiccant as purpose-made things like silica gel. It's fairly common to put a few grains of dry rice in a salt shaker to prevent the salt sticking together from moisture.
# cat
Damn, my RAM is full of llamas.
No, it's so much MORE than just a life. It's life, it's the meaning of life, and it's the afterlife.
There's no -1 for "I don't get it."
All those little 'do not eat' packets that come sealed in packages with devices and items you buy contain a desiccant. And it's reusable. Usually the desiccant in them is crystal granules that are blue when dry, and go white when they've absorbed moisture. You can bake them at a low heat in an oven to re-dry them out for reuse. In fact, it's worth saving all the little 'do not eat' packets for that purpose. You can tear the packet open and keep the granules inside to combine in a larger container if you wish.
It's common practice to use that kind of desiccant in a sealed safe where you are storing rare coins or anything else you don't want to tarnish. You can buy it in bulk quantities for that purpose. Put the recharged-blue desiccant in the safe before sealing it, and it'll pull all the moisture out of the sealed-in air and reduce corrosion/tarnishing of the silver/copper coins.
In the case of the salt shaker, the rice isn't absorbing moisture (the salt is WAY better at it than the rice is), it's being used for the same function as the bearing in a spray paint can, to break up the clumps mechanically. You could actually use some metal ball bearings for the same purpose (make sure they're bigger than the holes in the shaker, obviously).
Isn't enough that I ruined a pony, making a gift for you?
It took you 30 minutes to walk down 4 flights of stairs?
Callin' bullshit on that article.
This got me wondering how much damage a cell phone can actually take.
One of my previous phones was working just fine one minute, and then the next minute it wasn't, and it never worked again. Based on the overwhelming weight of that single anecdote I would have to say that 'none it all' is how much damange a cell phone can actually take and still continue working.
(by a strange coincidence, 'none at all' is exactly how much of a scientific conclusion you can draw from this :)
Hard core coffee drinkers have huge mugs and for some reason they don't like to wash them either.
Wash the mug!?! Are you crazy! Do you have any idea how long it takes to get the perfectly balanced biological film deposited to bring out the full rich coffee experience? Not to mention the saved up oils of coffees past that gets in the pores of the mug!
Where do you come up with this mug washing crazy talk?
I left my blackberry in my pants once when I put them in the washer. The phone was on during the entire cycle. I feared the worst, but put them on the heater for a day, turned it on, and.... it worked. Ok, so for the next two weeks or so buttons would randomly press themselves, and login was occasionally tedious, but it worked - and still does. I'm still pretty amazed that it didn't completely short it out.
Oh, and to you nitwit support people who gaze at that stupid little humidity strip and tell me that it is my fault the phone is crashing all the time.... go hump a lamp post. That strip turns pink when it's just somewhat humid outside. Since submerging a phone in water for about 20 minutes doesn't kill it, I'd like you to support your piece of crap hardware like you promised you would.
Those who can, do. Those who can't, sue.
The worst for me would have been my old Motorola Razr that survived a full cycle in the washing machine, then tumbled dry. I left it off and let it dry for a week before trying to power it back on - and not a thing wrong with it.
Down with the career politician! SUPPORT TERM LIMITS
Are there any phone manufacturers that will certify their products as 'washing machine safe'? :)
Be sure to set the washer on delicate, and dry on low heat
I work for the Department of Redundancy Department.
What has my iPhone phone survived?
After spending hours trying to work out how to get my iPhone to run more than on aPplication at once, I thought sod it, and proceeded to nail my iPhone to a wooden cross.
Three days later, I picked it up again. I wasn't expecting much. I mean, really, I'd shoved a nail right through the almighty touchscreen! To my surprise, the aPple logo popped up. My apps, my contacts, my music and more importantly my life were back.
Life wouldn't be worth living if I hadn't discovered the iPhone.
Umm you have to clean and dry and treat cast iron. You just don't use soap on it.
Why is it so hard to only have politicians for a few years, then have them go away?
It took you 30 minutes to walk down 4 flights of stairs?
Maybe he's a quadriplegic (you insensitive clod!) and he had to drag himself down the stairs using only facial twitches.
Want to improve your Karma? Instead of "Post Anonymously", try the "Post Humously" option.
In the case of the salt shaker, the rice isn't absorbing moisture (the salt is WAY better at it than the rice is), it's being used for the same function as the bearing in a spray paint can, to break up the clumps mechanically. You could actually use some metal ball bearings for the same purpose (make sure they're bigger than the holes in the shaker, obviously).
Popcorn kernels are a better candidate than ball bearings. I'm not saying ball bearings aren't a good choice but you'll find a lot of people have an aversion to finding them in something they're going to eat.
They say a little knowledge is a dangerous thing, but it's not one half so bad as a lot of ignorance. - Terry Pratchett