Please make the next iPhone waterproof!

Update September 2016: As of iPhone 7, Apple’s handsets are now waterproof to the IP67 specification. We believe this will prove to be a very important milestone for coastal and inland water safety. We urge other manufacturers to follow this example. Every waterproof cell phone is a potential lifesaver. Every cell phone should be waterproof!

If you call for help, we will rescue you. This bold claim has held true in our Swedish waters for several years. Yet we still lose many lives.

The widespread use of mobile phones is one powerful factor behind another interesting statistic: The number of lives lost in water-related accidents has dropped in developed countries. But in those cases where the phone gets exposed to that same water, the benefit of a wireless link to the rest of the world – so easy to take for granted – is usually lost.

For more than a decade we have been campaigning for people to buy and use waterproof phone cases, but the simple truth is that we are never going to win that battle. Most people will never, or at least not always, put their phones into protective cases or pouches before venturing close to water.

While people are likely not to change much, there are some encouraging examples in the industry. Several phone makers have waterproof models, and there are some interesting solutions for chemically waterproofing electronics, like http://www.liquipel.com.

But at the end of the day, we think that every phone should be waterproof. At the moment Apple is the industry leader, and what Apple does, the competition has to follow.

That’s why we ask Apple to step up and make the next iPhone waterproof — to help us and our fellow rescue organizations around the world save thousands of lives every year.

Do you have ideas, resources or connections that might help us reach this goal, please let us know, or start your own project here at surtsey.org! Make it your PR-firms show-of pro-bono case, the topic of your writing class, or, if you work in Cupertino, just let it happen!