Rice works!

Apple products (I’m talking about iPhones and iPods) are notorious, nay infamous, for being moisture sensitive.

I’m avoiding using the word ‘water’, for reasons that will become obvious.

I’ve never owned an iPhone.

I’m sure they’re lovely and all that, but they’re not my cup of tea.

But I’ve had a few iPods.

My favourite product is the iPod Classic, because I love having 160Gb of storage.

My current music library adds up to 75% of an iPod Classic (yes, 120Gb of music), and for that reason alone I love the iPod Classic.

All the hits and more.

Ahem.

Anyway.

Back to my winge.

I’m currently on my fifth iPod Classic and yes I really do know that Apple don’t make them any longer, but that doesn’t mean one can’t continue to buy them.

How have I successfully binned four iPod Classics?

Moisture.

Not ‘water’, per se, but ‘moisture’, definitely.

Unlike the designers of the iPod, we unfortunate souls who don’t live in sunny SoCal endure a climate prone to massive amounts of unpredictable precipitation.

And I mean massive amounts.

But not unpredictable as in it sometimes falls up.

It always comes down, this precipitation.

Though sometimes it does come sideways too.

And I’m a motorcyclist, so sometimes I’m caught out by this unpredictable precipitation.

I always wear proper clothing.

You’ll never catch me out on one of my motorbikes in anything less than proper, approved, substantial motorbiking clothing, as approved by the Enhanced Motorcyclists (of which I am a card-carrying, fully-qualified member).

My usual commuting clothes are a suit, shirt (etc), underneath a waterproof textile jacket and trousers.

My iPod usually nestles in the jacket pocket, with the zip done up as tightly as possible.

And that, in a nutshell, is how I have managed to throw away four iPod Classics.

Not through direct water contact inside the waterproof pocket of my waterproof textile motorcycling jacket.

Oh no.

The damage has occurred through condensation, as droplets have formed inside the waterproof pocket of my waterproof textile motorcycling jacket.

This is hardly robust.

But, as I’ve said, the iPod was designed by those tender souls who live in sunny SoCal, and who wouldn’t know actual rain if it fell on their collective heads.

Anyway.

After my last iPod stopped working due to moisture, I thought I’d test the ‘stick it in a bowl of rice’ trick, to see if that solution actually worked.

It did!

Actually worked.

I had to leave the iPod in a mixing bowl of Uncle Ben’s finest long grain, for three weeks, but after removing it, cleaning the rice dust off it and charging it overnight, the lovely little gadget came back to life!

Intact.

And in fully operational mode.

So there you are.

I can’t guarantee it will work for you, but it worked for me – and before I submerged it in a bowl of uncooked rice, my iPod was deader than an actual doornail.

So if you find yourself looking at the aftermath of an Apple/water conflict, give it a go.

You have nothing to lose but your rice.

And you could always cook that afterwards, anyway.

But don’t cut corners.

My iPod really did need three full weeks of rice treatment.