Yucatech
7/21/2021
Rice, despite the urban legend, does nothing to help with water-damaged iPhones, phones, tablets, or computers. It’s a placebo. This is due to the nature of how water destroys the electronic components in devices, and the user error that comes with it (Trying to turn on, turn it off, or plugging it in)
When one exposes their devices to water, a few situations can happen. The first is, well, literally nothing. If the individual is lucky, the water will be unable to seep into the device through the insulation covering the openings in gaps such as the SIM tray, speakers, and seams. The insulations sometimes give the illusion that the device is waterproof, rather than water-resistant because it is so effective, but unfortunately, it does not always work. When the insulation fails, the insidious water reaches the sensitive components such as the fuses, filters, and microchips on the motherboard and instantly begins to damage them.
The only way to save the device now is to open it up, dry the device out, cleanse the circuit board to remove the corrosion and stop further corrosion.
Things that could make the process worse are: waiting and further user error. Both are further exacerbated via the rice-conspiracy. If the user doesn’t do something quickly, such as removing water from the device, it could further corrode the components, making future repairs even harder, if not impossible. Leaving a device in rice may seem to work, but it does a worse job than a paper towel. Not to mention: the aforementioned issue of “not doing anything to get the liquid out of the device”. Worse, if the user decides to plug in the device thinking it has been dried via the rice, it could cause a short circuit and run the risk of permanent damage to the phone and the precious data in it.
This is why rice doesn’t do anything. It’s a placebo that could cause more harm than good, due to the misinformation attached to it. The recommendation to the device owner is to focus on immediately removing water via other means or take it into the nearest repair shop for a phone water-damaged treatment as soon as possible.
I know some of you might say: I dropped my iPhone in water, it was submerged, it was soaking wet, I kept it in rice for a couple of days and voila! It worked. I wouldn’t say it was a coincidence, but neither confirm that the rice saved your Phone. The truth is that the water did not make it far enough to be in contact with the main components of the devices, so regardless of whether you put the phone in the rice-or it sat on your kitchen table-the phone was going to work anyways.