Water Sensor in iPhone and iPod Touch?

Category: Apple Hardware
Link: A Water Sensor in iPhone and iPod Touch
Description:: none

Posted on MacBytes.com
Approved by Mudbug

a smart move on their part overall to stop people abusing the warranty. i just don't sit well with the placement due to it being on the external part of the devices.

a smart move on their part overall to stop people abusing the warranty. i just don't sit well with the placement due to it being on the external part of the devices.

Exactly. If I were walking down the street with the iPhone in my shirt pocket and got caught in a brief rainstorm, water could easily slip into the headphone jack. Yet that tiny amount wouldn't do any damage and shouldn't void my warranty. Why not have the sensor on the circuit board inside?

That's actually a horrible move.

I know of at least one company that, when their warranty/care department is over-stretched or over-budget, they reject handfuls of claims citing "water damage" to get them back on-target. It's basically impossible for the consumer to prove otherwise.

It would be easy for these sensors to become wet (rain, condensation) without actually damaging the device. It would be even easier for an unscrupulous employee in a claims department to drop a spot of liquid on the sensor.

SL

While this would stop some people trying to get a free replacement after soaking their iPod/Phone, the stickers that change color are available in many places, including eBay

Well I just looked, and I don't think it's a water sensor. I guess the only thing left to do is have someone take a dead iPhone (perhaps one that was f***ed by hacking or ripping it open on iDay) and see if it changes.

I'd be nicer if they had shown a before and after shot of water-colour-changes.

I'd love to know how much water you need to make an impact, Asia is quite a humid spot, how can I be sure that an iPod touch that is faulty wont be refused service due to 90% humidity one day.

So Apple spent money on putting a water sensor in every one of the millions of iPhones they manufacture at a cost of X? for the .000001 percentage of persons that might damage their phone due to water submission?

I don't know what the exact numbers but it does seem far fetched. I think it's just coincidence that a piece of cloth? that prevents debris (dust etc) from entering the iphone is also designed for the purpose of water detection

A few weeks ago my iPhone touch screen broke and I took it to the Apple Store's Genius Bar and I noticed the Mac Genius look into the headphone jack before he gave me a new iPhone. I wondered what he was looking at, and now I can assume that the watermark was what he was checking.

Seems to be pretty common in cell phone's at any rate. My last couple have had them, usually under the battery.