Rice is not included in Apple's official guidelines for a wet phone

Getting water on phones happens to the best of us. Lucky for us, there's one household staple that the internet keeps suggesting will draw out that liquid and save phones: uncooked rice. But contrary to popular advice, Apple, like most tech support workers, advises explicitly against Place your wet phone in a bag of rice.

“Do not place your iPhone in a bag of rice. Doing so may allow small particles of rice to damage your iPhone. Apple support documentation He said.

Support documents were first spotted by Macworld It technically covers what to do when you get a liquid detected alert on your iPhone. They're not just putting a stop to a long-standing Internet myth.

To that end, they also suggest avoiding using an external heat source, such as hair dryers, or compressed air to blast liquids. Also, do not insert cotton buds or paper towels into the charging ports either.

Instead, Apple suggests tapping your phone on your hand with the connector facing down. Think of it like getting water out of your ear after swimming. Next, leave it in an area with good airflow to dry and wait 30 minutes before charging it. If the alert still appears, put the phone down and just wait. It may take up to 24 hours to really dry. Disconnect and reconnect the charging cable if the phone is dry but still not charging.

For years, rice was supposed to be the thing that would dry out submerged electronics the fastest. It's a dryer that people assumed would draw extra liquid. I did this after I stubbornly refused to turn off my iPhone during a rain-soaked Taylor Swift concert. But perhaps it was the time spent with it off and out of my hands that helped my phone, not a drenching in rice.

the edge He wrote in 2015 that uncooked rice wasn't very absorbent, so time spent drying mostly worked. Leaving it in a rice bag often keeps phones out of sight, out of mind, so people aren't tempted to turn it on.