Its raining cats and dogs outside and you make a mad dash for your car. You have your iPhone in one hand and you’re fumbling around for your car keys with the other. As you frantically try to get out of the rain, the inevitable happens… you drop your iPhone. You pick up your phone and get in the car and quickly check to see if it still works. It seems to be working for the most part… until the screen starts blinking on and off on it’s own. Now what?

Until recently, Apple did not offer any replacements for water damaged iPhones. You were left with either buying a brand new iPhone, having your iPhone repaired by Apple for the out-of-warranty price or finding a third-party iPhone repair service company for a lower cost. Apple recently changed its policy on water damaged iPhones though. The policy does include all iPhone models from the latest 3GS model to the original iPhone. The policy states that Apple will indeed replace your water damaged iPhone for a fee of 9. However, your iPhone will be replaced with a same-generation iPhone and not all replacements will be new iPhones. Some customers will receive refurbished phones.

You may be wondering how you (or Apple) can tell if you have a water-damaged iPhone. You only dropped it in a 1/4″ puddle of water for 5 seconds tops, so that can’t qualify as a water-damaged iPhone…right? According to Apple’s website, all you need to do is look “directly down into the headphone jack,” where you will see a small colored dot. That small dot will be silver or white in iPhones without water damage. In an iPhone that has water damage, the dot will be red or pinkish.

Now that you’ve determined that your iPhone is water-damaged, what are your options? You could take advantage of Apple’s iPhone replacement policy, but 9 for an outdated and possibly refurbished model seems like a steep price tag. Another option is to have Apple repair your iPod. Their repair pricing varies from (for the iPod Shuffle) to 9 for the iPod. And lastly, you can have a third party iPhone repair company fix your iPhone for you, most likely for a lower cost. Some iPhone repair companies also offer a free diagnostic since the damaged iPhone part(s) are not necessarily visually evident in water damaged iPhones. Once the iPhone is diagnosed, you are notified of how much the repair will cost and can make a decision at that point whether the repair is worth it.

Accidents happen and it’s definitely great that Apple has stepped up and is offering an iPhone replacement on water damaged iPhones. However, keep in mind that there are other less expensive alternatives out there.

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