Cell Phones : iPhone Recovery

• What You Need To Know
• Trying to open and fix your iPhone yourself will void your warranty.
• Get water out by placing the phone in uncooked rice.
• There are many products out there that will make your iPhone look like new again.

"If you find yourself in a situation that requires iPhone recovery, there’s no need to panic just yet."

The more cell phones continue to evolve in terms of technology and power, the more we rely on them. iPhone owners in particular understand this relationship compared to other smartphone owners mainly because the device's rich pool of mobile apps and technology makes owning other gadgets unnecessary. While this is certainly convenient from a user standpoint, it also means that nothing can put a dent in your life and wallet quite like breaking or losing your iPhone.

If you find yourself in a situation that requires iPhone recovery, there’s no need to panic just yet. Instead, we’ve scoured the web to collect a variety of hacks and how to’s for solving many common “oh sh*t” scenarios owners encounter when luck just isn’t going their way.

Though there is no guarantee that every one of these iPhone recovery tips will save you from replacing your current device, they’re certainly all worth trying before throwing in the towel and pulling out your credit card.

Dry your iPhone

Water damage is one of the most common ways iPhone’s bite the dust. The worst part is that this kind of damage isn’t covered under warranty and, thanks to embedded water sensors in the device, there’s no way to fake your way into an exchange at the store. If you’ve managed to get your iPhone wet, don’t just assume it's messed up for good. Whatever you do, however, don’t try to turn it back on immediately after it happens, as this might further damage the circuits and guarantee that iPhone recovery is impossible.

iPhone recovery begins with towel drying it and placing it in a box of uncooked rice in a warm, dry environment to prevent any further water damage. Next, get your hands on some moisture absorbing silica gel packets. Now place them in a sealed zip lock bag with your iPhone and let them do their magic for several days. This should help remove the moisture on the phone’s internal components, and if you’re lucky, bring your phone back to life.

Still no luck? One last-ditch effort is to wrap your iPhone in a towel and set your oven to no higher than 150 F. Next, place your iPhone on the front rack with the oven door open for about two hours. It’s certainly a risky move, but it has worked for some owners, and is worth a shot before just chucking your iPhone in the trash.

Locate your lost phone or remotely protect your personal data

Apple’s MobileMe comes in handy if you ever lose your iPhone. In order for “Find My iPhone” to work, subscribers must make sure the feature is enabled on their device within the MobileMe settings. Then, anytime the iPhone goes missing, simply login to your Me.com account and use the feature to show the device's approximate location on a map. To help out the iPhone recovery process even more, users can also remotely make the iPhone emit a sound to pinpoint its location once you’re in the vicinity. If you can’t physically go to your lost phone and it happens to be found by a Good Samaritan, MobileMe also allows you to display a message on your lost phone’s screen to help someone return it to you.

 

There are several products designed to patch those unsightly scratches on your iPhone."

Another useful feature provided by MobileMe is the ability to remotely set a password in order to lock the phone. This setting is enabled through your Me.com account under the Find My Phone settings. As a foolproof precaution, the Remote Wipe settings area of MobileMe can erase any personal information you have on the device and restore your iPhone to the factory settings. If you do recover your phone after wiping it, all of your personal information can be reinstalled once you connect the iPhone to your computer and restore it from backup.

Splintered or cracked iPhone screens

If you crack your iPhone screen, the first thing to check is if the phone’s touch sensitivity still works. If it works, the one issue to look out for is broken glass in your fingers. To protect against this, we recommend buying a case or screen protector, or wrapping your device in clear masking tape as a short-term fix. It may not be elegant, but you can potentially still limp by using your phone until the new one is released.

If the cracks have made your phone unusable, the bad news is that this kind of damage isn’t cheap to fix and starts at $200 if you opt to send the device to Apple for repairs. Some third-party vendors like iFixIt or PDAParts sell DIY kits that can be slightly cheaper, but this kind of repair is not easy and requires some technical know-how. It also voids your warranty. As a last-ditch reminder, some credit card companies such as American Express automatically provide purchase protection plans that may significantly lower the cost of fixing your device. Buying a used device from an online vendor or Craigslist is also a good source for avoiding paying the out-of-contract fee for a completely new handset.

Scratches and dings

There are several products designed to patch those unsightly scratches on your iPhone. One example is Ice Creme, which works by removing surface abrasions and scratches from acrylic, polycarbonate and bright metal surfaces. Selling for $22.95, the kit includes two bottles of finishing solution as well as applicators, polishing clothes and a brushed metal refinishing pad.

iDrops is another solution marketed for repairing similar scratches. A more common solution that owners have successfully used is literally carefully taking a Brillo pad or other abrasive to the rough edges of the metal parts to smooth things out. If you opt for this method, be sure that you cover non-scratched areas in masking tape to prevent making the situation worse.

Though it doesn’t help much after the fact, owners concerned about scratches can always protect their phone using a permanent body case, or applying a protective plastic film made for the iPhone.

No sound coming from the speakers

Losing the ability to hear audio from the iPhone's bottom-mounted speakers is a well-documented issue for iPhone owners that normally has nothing to do with the speakers. Instead, a lack of audio output usually happens because a mechanism in the headset jack that detects when headphones are plugged in can fail due to debris or dirt getting inside. Since this causes the phone to think you constantly have a headset plugged in, the iPhone continues to route all audio to the headset output.

Cleaning or dislodging the debris is obviously the strategy for solving this issue. One suggested method is to use a dampened Q-Tip to clean the headset jack.

Apple's official solution is to insert and remove the headphones five times as fast as you can. This apparently puts the audio output mechanism in the jack back to its original state, and should cause the phone to route audio to the speakers again.