Horror Stories From Smartphone Users – You Could Be Next…

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Smartphones are a huge part of most peoples lives. With something that important and fragile, it is only a matter of time until something bad happens. These tiny devices are the means to the outside world for a lot of people and when something happens to their smartphone they feel lost or disconnected from society.

Image via Flickr by phone-techs

Consumers often use their smartphones to store important photographs, work documents and messages. Of course, smartphones can also cost quite a bit of money. Unfortunately, users of such devices have experienced dreadful horror stories when they don’t take proper care of them.

Waterlogged in the Pool

While working on a photo shoot in France, one producer was pushed into a pool as part of a prank. The person who pushed her probably didn’t think the joke was very funny after the fact, when she emerged from the water only to find that her smartphone had drowned.

A waterlogged smartphone is never fun. To make matters worse, though, the device contained all of the contacts that she needed to orchestrate the day’s shoot. That’s like your computer dying the morning that your big assignment is due or watching your notes fly out of a cab window on the way to your presentation.

Some merry prankster probably lost his job that day.

Waterlogged in the Toilet

Many smartphone owners are troubled with the perpetual concern that they will drop their precious devices in the toilet. It happens more often than you might think. Humorously, it also happened to the photo producer mentioned above.

About a year after the pool incident, she caught her one-year-old daughter trying to flush her new smartphone down the toilet. The phone had gotten lodged in the pipe, and she couldn’t pry it free. When her husband came home, he finally found a way to get it out. By then, though, it was a goner.

If you dropped your brand new corporate BlackBerry 9310 in the toilet, would you even want it back? After all, you put your mouth up to that thing.

A Mighty Fall

College students don’t have a lot of money to spare, so they should probably keep a close eye on their smartphones. One student, who had climbed onto his roof with some friends, thought he’d put his phone in a safe place…until it started to vibrate.

The vibrations caused the phone to rattle its way to the roof’s edge, where it fell all the way to the ground. The student rushed after it, but it was too late. The phone’s screen was smashed beyond repair. Luckily, the student didn’t hurt himself on the way down.

In an amazing twist, though, the phone still worked… somewhat. Since he didn’t have enough money to replace the device, he kept using it even though he could only see a tiny portion of the screen.

Performing Your Own Upgrades

Truly tech-savvy consumers often tinker with their phones to change the operating system or unlock hidden features. It’s a process called rooting, and it’s a bit tricky for the average person.

A woman named Eliza Wee admits that she can’t stop tinkering with her electronic devices. She had already rooted one phone, so she thought she’d try a similar approach on her new device. When she tried to install a new ROM, though, she fried the hard drive.

This wouldn’t have been a big deal except that she decided to perform the upgrades right before leaving on a business trip and didn’t have time to collect new contacts from her friends and colleagues. Needless to say, that probably was not Eliza’s most productive business trip.

When it comes to something as expensive yet fragile as a smartphone there are bound to be extreme cases of misfortune. What horror stories have you heard or experienced yourself?