iOS 10 Will Issue a Warning When Your iPhone Is in Danger of Being Damaged by Water

I’m sure a good majority of us are still holding out hope for that waterproofed iPhone 7 we’ve been hearing about, right? Well, unfortunately, even as exciting as the prospect of a waterproofed iPhone sounds, we’ve yet to come across any concrete evidence suggesting that Apple’s forthcoming flagship will for certain boast water or dust protection of any kind — even despite the company’s iPhone 6s, 6s Plus, and SE already featuring a slew of new, in-built water detection sensors in their own right.

If a recently discovered feature in the latest iOS 10 public beta 2 ends up making it through to the final round, however, we might have at least some form of guaranteed, albeit indirect, water protection to look forward to when iPhone 7 is unveiled later on this fall.

Aside from the many cool new features that we already know are coming to iOS 10, there was discovered yet another new, inherently beneficial feature in the latest iOS 10 public beta release. It’s essentially a handy utility, by which your iPhone will issue an alert notification when the presence of water is detected within the device’s Lightning port — thereby helping to protect the device from potentially irreversible water damage.

Avid YouTuber EverythingApplePro’s video, which was discovered yesterday by Engadget, demonstrates how the new feature works on his iPhone 6s — in addition to a bunch of other cool new iOS 10 features coming soon. And while it’s not inherently clear how exactly the feature works, there are a few logical theories we can entertain.

Since Apple’s Lightning technology and, more specifically, its iOS device’s physical charging port, is engineered to be inactive when the port isn’t being used, Cupertino’s implementation could be designed so that a warning will be issued when the Lightning cable is actually connected to the device.

While that may seem a bit strange to some, it’s perhaps more of a logical move on Apple’s part — particularly seeing as how water would inherently pose little threat to an otherwise inactive Lightning port, right?

Taking the aforementioned feature on iPhone 6s and iPhone SE into consideration, EverythingApplePro speculated that Apple’s iOS 10 might include a related feature by which those inherently dormant sensors on the iPhone 6s (and newer) are activated — thereby triggering the water alert notification.

Otherwise, why would Apple even bother implementing the new sensors in the first place, right? Of course, since Apple’s rivals — such as Samsung — have been releasing devices featuring IP XX water certification, left and right, perhaps you’re more inclined to wonder why Apple hasn’t just hopped aboard the waterproof certification bandwagon already? However, we think it’s important to consider that — since those devices are hardly holding up to their hype, as it stands — perhaps Apple is just holding out for the fruition of its own, highly advanced water protection protocol. But we suppose only time will tell, right?

What do you think about iOS 10 beta’s newly discovered feature? Wouldn’t you rather just have a fully-fledged waterproofed iPhone, though? Let us know in the comments!