Just how water resistant is the iPhone 7?

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As revealed at Apple’s iPhone 7 keynote, the new handset is water resistant (not waterproof), and this means it can supposedly handle some water splashes and light submersion and come out unharmed.

Now that the iPhone 7 is officially available to the public, you can probably imagine some people have already started putting the device through water tests. So how did it do?

It turns out the iPhone 7 and iPhone 7 Plus are much more water resistant than Apple wants to admit, but there’s probably a good reason they don’t want to over-sell the product, as it could leave the company open to litigation. Call it playing safe on Apple’s part.

The iPhone 7 is rated at IP67 water-resistance, which means it’s protected from not only water, but also dust. At this rating, the iPhone 7 should be able to handle up to 1 meter of submersion for as much as 30 minutes before problems begin to arise.

Heavy water and dust resistance measures were discovered by teardown team iFixit when they tore down the iPhone 7 Plus just yesterday, so it shouldn’t come off as much of a surprise. Apple originally began testing water resistance measures in the iPhone 6s, but never officially announced it as a feature.

Multiple water stress tests have made it to YouTube within the past 24 hours. One of them, published by YouTube user infohut, shows the iPhone withstanding not only water, but even hot coffee, which simulates a hardcore hot coffee spill on your table:

So the iPhone 7 fares pretty well in that test, but it’s not the only case of the iPhone 7 surviving liquids without so much as a blip. Another video published by EverythingApplePro also shows the water resistance of the iPhone 7 working wonders:

In this video, the iPhone is put to the 1-meter and 30-minute test that it’s specified for, and seems to survive perfectly fine. So afterwards, the iPhone is taken to a river for a swimming test, and it fares in a similar way.

It looks like the iPhone 7 holds up to pretty reasonable water exposure, which means the number of all those accidental water damage claims that people often take to the Apple Store to fix may considerably drop with the new handset.

One thing to note though is water damage is not covered under your AppleCare warranty… so you shouldn’t go dunking your iPhone 7 under water on purpose just because it’s water resistant. There’s always the unlikely event the seal could fail and you’ll be out your phone.

Are you surprised by the water resistance of the new iPhone 7 and iPhone 7 Plus? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below.