While all of Apple’s iPhone 12 models are rated to be water resistant, CNET decided to push it to the limit.
CNET
Apple’s IP68 water resistance rating applies to all four iPhone 12 models — the iPhone 12, iPhone 12 Mini, iPhone 12 Pro and iPhone 12 Pro Max — so for the first test, CNET used an iPhone 12 to test the rating: 19.6 feet (6 meters) of water for 30 minutes.
After half an hour, they pulled up to phone and tested to see if it still worked. According to CNET, the touchscreen worked fines, as did the volume rocker. All three cameras showed no signs of fogging, and photos taken looked fine. A voice memo sounded a bit muffled, but overall, the phone seemed to work fine.
For the second dive, CNET wanted to push the phone to more extreme depths, dunking it to 65 feet (20 meters) underwater, more than three times the maximum depth rating.
After pulling the phone up after 40 minutes, they ran it through the same tests as before, and surprisingly, everything worked as normal. “The screen was responsive, the volume and power buttons worked, and the two cameras were in working order as well,” CNET says. “The speaker still sounded muffled when playing back the voice memo, but it was still audible.”
They then turned the iPhone 12 off and let it sit a few days to dry.
After 72 hours, they noticed that while the phone itself was completely dry, some of the lenses had developed some fogging. After plugging the phone in to charge and powering it back up, the iPhone 12’s screen showed a Diagnostics prompt. After failing to get through the Diagnostics a number of times, they reset the device through a MacBook. While it did reset, but they still couldn’t get past the Diagnostics screen.
“While we have no way of knowing exactly what caused this error to happen, it may have been lingering water damage, the shift in temperature between the cold water of Lake Tahoe to an indoor environment, or a combination of both,” explains the report.
The tests would suggest that the iPhone 12 can withstand very deep water and clearly meets the IP68 claim, but keep in mind that water damage is not covered under warranty.
