How Serenity Caldwell Drowned Her Fiancé’s iPhone 7 Plus on Vacation

Serenity Caldwell:

Unfortunately, even if you wind up with a defective model — as we did — Apple doesn’t officially cover water damage in its warranty. You’ll need AppleCare+ not to pay an outrageous sum to replace your device. Thanks to the phone being covered, it was just $99, but you only get two incidents at that price — drown your iPhone a third time, and you’ll be paying half of your original purchase price for a replacement.

The Genius we spoke to did note that one-time drownings were rare; they were sending our phone to Apple’s engineering department to dissect and check on the seals, and if one of the display seals was indeed found to be faulty, we might get our money and AppleCare+ incident back. But that’s a long shot, and not one I’m necessarily banking on.

My general takeaway from the week’s misadventure is this: You can probably use your iPhone in the shower, at the beach, or wash debris off its screen under the faucet with no ill effects. But when you completely submerge it, you’re putting stress on every water-resistance gasket in the phone — and if just one of those gaskets fail, you’re looking at an Apple Store visit and a costly to very costly repair.

★ Monday, 28 November 2016