My son’s iPod touch ran through a cycle in the washing machine. Full cycle, swishing around in the water logged pocket of a pair of school pants. For 38 minutes. Here is how I proceeded…….

1. Freaked out.

2. Told my son how he’s going to have to learn to converse with the family again in order to entertain himself.

3. Relaxed and figured I would try pulling the moisture out of the unit to see if we could save it. My expectations of saving the unit at this point were slim since the unit was submerged for such a long period of time.

IMG_99164. I filled a medium size plastic food container with rice, inserted the iPod into the rice and screwed the top on. I let the device sit in the rice for 5 days. It’s important to know that at this step, do not power the unit on to test to see if it works. That is a good way to fry the device before you even get a chance to dry it out.

5. I pulled the device out after 5 days, and powered the unit up just like normal. Everything worked fine. (If you do get to this point, and some features of the device are still not working, throw it in the rice again, let it sit in there for a couple of more days.)

6. Rejoiced.

So, I’ve heard about the rice trick before, but I’ve only heard first hand accounts of it working if the phone or iPod fell into a toilet, sink or drink. In other words, just a quick dunk into liquid before being rescued. I’ve never heard of it working after the device has sat in liquid for any long period of time, let alone run through a washing machine.

From other research I’ve done on this, it does not work like this all the time, and even when you are able to revive the unit, expect it to work somewhat slower or expect the touch screen to not work as accurately as before. In my case, I was lucky that all of the features worked great once I powered it up.

The key to this successful rescue was leaving the iPod in the rice for a long period of time. Keep the device buried in rice as long as you can afford. Even though the device could have been dried out in 2 or 3 days, we left it in for a full 5 just for good measure.

Filed under: Uncategorized