Tech

No, you can't fix your iPhone with rice

I'm a big fan of MacGyver-style repairs, but some are just not worth the effort.

Written by Adrian Kingsley-Hughes, Senior Contributing Editor June 18, 2019 at 6:40 a.m. PT

I think we've all heard this old rice myth. You know the one I mean. You accidentally drop your phone into the toilet – or some other inconvenient pool of water – and then you're supposed to find a big bag of rice, place the phone into it, and the rice sucks all the water out and the smartphone lives to fight another day.

Sounds too good to be true, right? That's because it is.

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The folks at iFixit have published a blog post that goes into quite some detail about the issue, but the bottom line is simple:

Say it with us: Rice is a food, not a tool. Food rice good, phone rice bad.

Not only does sticking a phone in a bag of rice do little or nothing to dry out the water, the rice particles can get into the device and actually contribute to the problem.

Another problem which the iFixit piece details quite well, is how corrosion is the real enemy. And this corrosion starts instantly, and once it gets a hold on circuit boards and components, it develops what we call in the trade "the green crusties" which eat away at things and causes short-circuits.

The problem is much worse these days as devices become splashproof or waterproof. You'd think this would be a good thing, but as soon as you get water into a device that's designed to keep water out, it can be a really difficult to get that water out without totally dismantling the device.

And that in turn makes it more susceptible to water ingress.

So don't waste your time with rice.