True meaning of IP68 Rating of the iPhone Xs series?

See -> About splash, water, and dust resistance of iPhone 7 and later - Apple Support

The reality is the IP67 and IP68 rating is never a guarantee against water damage. It merely indicates a rated device is more likely to survive water damage than an un-rated device. But it is never a guarantee. Despite all the seals and protection, there are far too many holes for water intrusion on any smart phone to guarantee against water damage.

The very few smart phones available in the market that warranty against water damage all have manually removed and engaged physical seals or plugs over all openings. You literally have to remove the microphone and earpiece plugs to make or receive a call, and then put them back in place to assure no water can get in.

Because of the number of posts of this type I see, I recently wrote up a user tip on understanding water resistance that might help people understand what the ratings actually mean...

Understanding Water Resistance

It is disingenuous for the marketeers to claim this then say

It is not permanent

It is not warranted

They would be better not making a thing of it.

It says 1 metre for up to 30 minutes.

I thought the world had gone past this but it even displays this untruth in my country where misleading adverts are supposed to be illegal. On this I am totally unsupportive of Apple's ad men.

Those figures are based on laboratory testing under controlled conditions.

Unfortunately, too many people don't understand what it means. I'm also not crazy about the way Apple advertises it as though it is not technically false, it is misleading.

The best comparison for water resistance ratings is watches.

A watch rated at anything less than 30 Meters of water resistance should never be submerged. It will almost certainly be ruined. A watch rated at 50 Meters is ok for splashing around in a kiddie pool, but I wouldn't go swimming with one on.

You shouldn't go swimming or snorkeling with anything rated at less than 100M, and you should really have something rated at 200M with a screw down crown if you're snorkeling.

The phone is tested to 2 meters. Compare that to the above... It can withstand (usually) having a beer spilled on it if you pick it up and dry it off right away. That's about it.

The difference I would say to true professional dive watches, is they are actually pressure tested and rated. In other words, an actual dive rated watch rated to 100 meters is put in a hyperbaric chamber full of seawater and pressurized to 10 atmospheres for some period of time and then subsequently checked for water intrusion. And it will come with some recommended service period where it should be serviced and seals replaced and retested to maintain that rating. So a high end dive whatcha comes with a pressure rating, not merely some coded resistance rating. And expensive dive watches are all individually tested at the factory, not sample batch tested like consumer IP rated devices are.

There is a huge difference between a device pressure tested for a given depth equivalent rating and a consumer water resistance rating test. It’s apples to oranges.

In graduate school I worked with a stereo camera housing rated for 4000 meters depth (a bit shy of 400 atmospheres pressure). We replaced and serviced all the seals on that housing before every single dive, following the manufacturers service protocol. Even then I remember the documentation never referred to “water proof”. It merely referred to the pressure rating based on factory testing prior to shipment (legalize phrases like “will resist water intrusion if not subject to a pressure greater than X or equivalent sea depth of y”).

I tried to get my Se*ko watch retailer to take out the "water resistant to 30m" off their website by British trading standards but they said it was an international understanding and everyone knows that 30m meant splashproof.

It also had it in the handbook so my misty watch was doomed. (I wore it in the shower!)

The issue will be that if you feel it is a lemon, and Apple disagrees, you’re only option is to sue. How much is that going to cost you?

And remember that no other smart phone manufacturer warranties water damage on their IP67 and IP68 devices.

Having collected watches for quite a while anyone who has done that endeavor knows the rating (which came from the watch world is neither misleading nor illegal. There are much higher ratings for watches such as the Omega and Rolex submariners and other dive watches. Some of those models have limited warranties that actually do cover water damage (but not fully).

Those standards just show that the particular phone in question (brand new) was able to perform that test without failing. But Apple's (and every other smartphone maker's) warranty on IP67 and IP68 rated devices do not cover water damage. And it is true that seals fade over time on devices. I doubt a two year old iPhone could pass the IP67 test.

Everybody writes. here that they just dropped their phone from 2 feet onto plush carpeting, they dropped their phone into water and retrieved it in seconds, they only had two beers, and the check is in the mail. But there is no way to confirm that. The phone could. have been in the water for an hour. It could have been dropped from 8 feet into the water (there is no water pressure test with IP67 or IP68 so any water pressure at all, whether in a shower or dropping it in a sink exceeds the. specification). So it is best when purchasing a device skip the rating and go right to the warranty. If water damage is not covered do everything you can to keep it dry.

I’m just saying that Apple’s public warranty terms state that water damage voids the warranty. So if they say you’re out of luck, legal action would be your only recourse.

You don’t have to convince anyone here of anything. But you would need to convince Apple to replace your phone without paying the out of warranty replacement fee.