I dropped my iphone 14 in the ocean. It was in there 2 days until it washed up onshore. A fisherman picked it up and it was still on and it had service. It was in lost mode so he was able to call my emergency contact and I got it back. Aside from minor scratches on the screen it has no damage and works perfectly. That experience taught me that Apple takes reliability extremely seriously, even if they dont care about repairability. I dont know if they could have made a phone this bulletproof while also making it repairable. I do believe it is a good thing for people to be able to repair stuff they own, but there is a tradeoff.
We found an iPhone in the ocean in Mexico. Verizon put us in touch with the owner who said it had been there for a week. It worked fine. I agree, reliability can be a proxy for repairability.
Wow, did you drop it nearby, as in, on the beach? I always imagined that a denser object like that would stay put and even perhaps nudged outward by the ocean motion.
