Filed under: Humor, Odds and ends, iPhone
Don't try this at home
Or at the pool, or at the beach. It seems a French fellow was proud of his new iPhone 3GS and was taking pictures around the pool when the sort of inevitable happened. Yup, in the drink. Amazingly, the iPhone survived the underwater ordeal, and even recorded [YouTube link] the trip. Allegedly.There are a few water-tight cases for the iPhone, and we road tested an Otterbox Defender case back in April. Perhaps this fellow will invest in such a case should he go iPhone diving in the future.
Now of course the video might be a fake (I would have expected to see water on the lens for example), but at least it's an entertaining weekend diversion. Click through to the second half of the post to see the video.
Via Cult of Mac.
The pool drop, in all its glory:
![TUAW [Cafepress]](http://www.blogsmithmedia.com/www.tuaw.com/media/tuaw-cafepress-promo.png)
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
emil said 10:59AM on 6-28-2009
Given that there's absolutely no proof it wasn't in a waterproof case, I'm calling "fake."
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Galley said 11:02AM on 6-28-2009
This video fails because he didn't zoom in on the hot chicks.
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milkmage said 11:11AM on 6-28-2009
i think there is water on the lens. check the lower left corner after he gets it back. there's a blury spot.
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gavin.lewis2905 said 11:13AM on 6-28-2009
Fake
http://www.funkyspacemonkey.com/iphone-3gs-water-resistant-video-fake
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dagamer43 said 11:24AM on 6-28-2009
If someone believes that full submersion of electronics doesn't cause a problem, I have a bridge in Alaska I'd like to sell you. :)
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Andre said 11:37AM on 6-28-2009
I'm not just calling fake, it has to be fake. The lens on the iPhone is recessed, and there would have been one large drop stay in that area, and cling to the ring around the lens. This would have been quite ob
This is an underwater-capable camera with smooth glass over the lens, such as the Fuji Z33.
Also, water would have immediately entered either the dock port or the earphone jack, shorting the phone.
It was also an obvious setup.
The iPhone has good macro capability, but upon examination of the frames in the video, you can clearly see the guy's ring on his finger as he retrieves the camera. It's about an inch away, and is clear.
You can also clearly see a strap dangling in several frames. The guy says it was a strap on his iPhone case. Sure. And he wasn't holding onto it. Ever see an iPhone case with a strap like that?
A quick search on his name reveals he has a photography business (Excalibur Photography). Looks like the same guy on that site as we see in one of the frames of the video. He's got multiple cameras, and knows how to a) hold onto them, and b) how to edit and fake a video.
Unfortunately the conversion to Youtube strips out the camera information from the video. I'm confident though that this is a camera designed to be in the water, and is not an iPhone.
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homeworld said 2:08PM on 6-29-2009
Actually, the lens on the 3GS only looks recessed. There's a glass cover over it. The glass, metal ring, and plastic body are almost perfectly flush.
Tim2LMan said 11:44AM on 6-28-2009
I'm saying this is real. I was on a phone call with my 2G iPhone, and I dropped it in soup! There was nothing wrong with it when I grabbed it out. The iPhone is built well!
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John Ellenich said 12:20PM on 6-28-2009
If it stops working, put the phone in a bag of cat litter for 3 days. A friend of mine washed her iPhone in the washing machine, which totally killed it.
But another friend recommended putting it in a bag of kitty litter for 3 days and it totally revived the iPhone!
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Appletutorials.net said 12:32PM on 6-28-2009
That`s hilarious, but I think emil is rite: I bet 10$ that the phone was in a waterproof case.
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OtherKev said 2:06PM on 6-28-2009
I dropped my iPhone in the (clean) toilet just last night.
I was getting changed after a refreshing dip in my friend's pool, and had left my iPhone in my pants pocket, in the house and away from the water. I put the pants on the counter while I changed, and when I went to grab them, the phone flew out of the pocket, landing straight in the toilet bowl.
It had a hard plastic case, that covered most of the back and sides, but the front, headphones, volume+mute buttons, dock connector and camera are exposed. When I pulled to case off, it had taken on a fair bit of water.
Thankfully, it still works, and although it complained about an "unrecognised accessory"*, it's no worse for the wear... at least so far. I was relieved to find no water inside the SIM slot, so although the phone was submerged completely for about 10 seconds, I don't think it's going to be a problem.
In case you're wondering, it's an iPhone 3G, 16gb, with an "Incase" slider case: http://www.goincase.com/products/detail/slider-case-cl59059/1
*: I didn't think toilet water counted as an "accessory" :P
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richkoster said 2:34PM on 6-28-2009
Andre, look more closely at the camera lens on the iPhone 3GS and you'll see that while the lens is recessed, it has a flush-to-the body clear cover over it.
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Tom said 5:50PM on 6-28-2009
I'd say it could be real. If you look closely at the video, a few seconds before the iPhone hits the ground of the pool, you can clearly see an iPhone-shaped shadow. It could still be in a waterproof case of course, but a friend of mine had his iPod Touch falling into his vanity basin with clear water, it was submerged for a few seconds but it still worked afterwards.
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atothej said 3:46PM on 6-28-2009
whatever makes you say it's a French fellow?
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Dorv said 4:19PM on 6-28-2009
yeah, I don't care if its fake or not, but my 3G didn't survive a drop into the pool.
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James Donevan said 4:44PM on 6-28-2009
@atothej "whatever makes you say it's a French fellow?"
Because the story has passed from site to site like a Chinese whisper. The fellow was born in Paris but lived in the US for the past 28 years. He is indeed a professional photographer who is hardly likely to have risked his reputation by faking what is a not uncommon occurrence.
The Internet is chock a block with stories of iPhones that have been submerged one way or another and survived - including various YouTube efforts wherein the iPhone is submerged in a sink or under a tap and keeps on going. It's the interior corrosion in a few weeks time that will end its life.
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MarxAnth said 6:09PM on 6-28-2009
Could be real.. I dropped my 1g in the toilet.. it acted weird when I first pulled out out but i turned it off, dried it and left it alone for about an hour or so. Worked fine after that.. Never had any problems..
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marcoiac said 6:54PM on 6-28-2009
definitely fake
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fooyork said 7:05PM on 6-28-2009
My iPhone 3G survived a swim with me in a pool a couple of weekends ago when a 'friend' decided to push me in fully clothed... with iPhone in pocket...
The mic and speaker stopped working for about 12 hours, but it all (miraculously) came back to life eventually!
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Navarro Parker said 12:22AM on 6-29-2009
It's not the immersion in water that would make the iPhone stop working. It's when the water evaporates and leaves minerals on the circuitry. He could rinse it in distilled water and everything should be fine.
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