If like me, you listen to podcasts, music or iPlayer on your iPhone to help you to drift off to sleep. Just make sure you put it somewhere safe as soon as you wake up and arise from your snuggly duvet on these winters mornings.
A couple of days ago, we all awoke slightly late, so the morning rush to prepare for and execute the morning school run was slightly more rushed and fractious than normal. I whipped the duvet off by semi conscious body and headed for the bathroom, where on my return the bedroom my wife was diligently removing the sheets to get a white wash on before we all headed out.
About 5 minutes before we were about to head out the door, now back on the rigid schedule that is the departure time for the school run, I popped upstairs to get my phone...
After looking pretty much everywhere and on returning to the bedroom for the third look around, the penny dropped - as did the pit of my stomach. I was on top of the duvet, headphones still attached... The duvet was downstairs adding to the washing pile that had built up as the morning had progressed. At least I hoped to hell that it was!
Calmly and relaxed I called downstairs in a barely raised voice asking if the bedding had gone in the washing machine yet. After a significant delay, came the reply... "SHIT!"
Both stood in front of the washing machine, I turned off the mains supply and waited for the click announcing the release of the door lock... It came.
As my wife slowly pulled out the sheets, an ear bud first appeared followed by the chord... We didn't have to be even half awake to know what was coming on the other end of it.
The, a glow appeared through the white duvet cover and the screen came in to view, with a little message waiting for us.
"This accessory is not made to work with iPhone" No shit!!!
I guess that's why Apple truly believe it really is a smart phone... I didn't even need to download an App for that...
Obviously there was no way we could take it seriously from this point on. So I stuck it in airing cupboard in the vain hope that when it dried, it would work.
So after reading a few instructions on ifixit.com, I opened it up, removed the main components, split them up and gave them a good clean (like they weren't already), dried them and let the bits on the radiator for a few hours.
On reassembly I tried to turn it on with no results. So I decided to pop the USB connector in for the hell of it, already resigned to the fact that it was now a very expensive paper weight. As I did, it popped back to life with the battery recharging symbol, where it remained for about 10 minutes.
But, on returning from making a coffee, there was a keypad waiting and begging me to to enter my PIN. The first number arrived about 2 seconds after I touched, as did the second, but the third and fourth were instantaneous. And then it lit up and returned to the exact manner in which it had been left on my duvet a couple of mornings previously.
It works, it has no issues that I have come across and I didn't have to make an insurance claim, as I was certain I would have to.
The iPhone 3G survived a tumble in 90'C soapy water in a washing machine for over 15 minutes...
Bloody amazing!











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