5 iPhone Myths You Really Need To Stop Believing

We all think we know our smart devices in and out since we use them every day of our lives. When it comes to iPhones, common knowledge about the device has been passed down through forums, word-of-mouth, and viral social media videos over many years, solidifying many of those as facts — but how many of these stand up under scrutiny?

We've all heard advice such as putting a wet phone in rice to dry it out quickly, always closing apps instead of leaving them in the background to save battery life, and never leaving your iPhone on charge overnight. While many pieces of advice might have been true and effective in the past, relying on these outdated approaches could have a negative impact on the modern iPhone you carry in your pocket today. In fact, it turns out most of these myths stem from a misunderstanding of how the latest iPhones work.

Thankfully, we're here to set the record straight. Here are some of the most common incorrect iPhone myths, why they're wrong, and why believing in these myths could sometimes end up damaging your phone. 

The classic trick, and one of the most common smartphone myths that almost everyone knows, is to immediately put your iPhone into a bag of uncooked rice if it gets wet. While the logic seems valid — rice absorbs water, so it can quickly absorb moisture from your phone — this myth is one of the most persistent and damaging ones out there. It's true that rice is a drying agent, but it is incredibly slow and passive. It does not really "suck" the water out of your iPhone, but instead just absorbs humidity from the nearby environment.

In fact, using rice to dry your phone can lead to more harm than good. When your device is in that bag, the water trapped inside is already hard at work corroding the copper contacts on your logic board — no amount of rice is going to be able to wick that moisture away more effectively than simply letting your device air dry. Further, rice can infiltrate the interior of your phone through its charging ports and speaker grilles, possibly causing even more damage.

Apple, likely well aware of the prevalence of this myth, has specifically advised against using rice in its official support documentation. Instead, it recommends you position your iPhone with the connector facing down, then tap the phone lightly so any trapped liquid can drain from the connector or speaker path easily. Then, leave the phone in a dry spot that has some airflow for at least half an hour.

There's a certain satisfaction in swiping and clearing out every single background app and emptying your App Switcher interface. It feels you're like decluttering a messy room, making space for more important items. This perception makes force-closing background apps seem like a smart move to save battery power or free up RAM for other apps. In reality, however, doing so can harm the iPhone's battery.

This force-closing habit can be mainly attributed to Windows operating systems, where minimizing the app window doesn't necessarily stop it from using CPU and RAM. However, iOS functions differently. Instead of letting the app keep running in the background, iOS actually freezes it and suspends its state in system RAM. In this suspended state, the app isn't using any processor power; it's simply sitting idle in memory, waiting for someone to wake it up. Apple specifically says you should force-close an app only when it becomes unresponsive, as there's no other reason to do so.

Paradoxically, there is actual harm done in closing apps and then reopening them when you need them next. When you close an app on your iPhone, you completely wipe it from system memory. The next time you open it, your device has to reload all that app data from storage back into its memory, essentially launching the app from scratch. Doing so uses significantly more battery power than simply unfreezing an app from its suspended state. As a result, you're forcing your phone to work harder by unnecessarily closing apps and then relaunching them. This results in more overall strain on your battery.

If you are concerned about app-related battery drain, there are some steps you can take. The most effective one is to turn off Background App Refresh under your phone's General Settings, as this prolongs battery life more effectively than force-closing apps.

Sometimes, when your iPhone's battery is about to die, you try every trick in the book to conserve power. This can include turning off Wi-Fi and Bluetooth in the Control Center by tapping their respective icons so you can eke out a few more minutes of charge. The truth, however, is that this often doesn't make much of a difference.

It turns out that switching those little icons from blue to gray doesn't actually turn your phone's Wi-Fi and Bluetooth radios off. Since iOS 11, toggling these icons under the Control Center simply disconnects your device from the current network or any Bluetooth accessories it's connected to, leaving both Wi-Fi and Bluetooth still fully active in the background. This is an intentional design choice on the part of Apple to help ensure the proper functioning of features like AirDrop, AirPlay, and Handoff. It also ensures that connectivity with devices like Apple Pencil or Apple Watch remains unaffected.

If you truly want to disable these radios, you will need to open the Settings app and look for an option under either your Wi-Fi or Bluetooth settings to turn them off completely. The best way to verify is to check the Wi-Fi or Bluetooth icons in Control Center; if they are completely grayed out with a slash, they are off.

This classic and widespread myth dates back to the days of older nickel-cadmium batteries, which could indeed be damaged by prolonged charging. On the contrary, modern phones, including iPhones, use lithium-ion batteries powered by highly efficient Power Management Integrated Circuits (PMICs). This makes your phone smart enough to know when its battery is full, and the moment it reaches 100%, the PMIC immediately cuts off charging and lets the phone run directly from the wall socket. Your fully-charged battery is therefore saved from force-feeding.

Apart from that, iOS has a unique feature called Optimized Battery Charging that uses machine learning techniques to understand your charging pattern and help mitigate the chemical aging that occurs when your phone remains plugged in for hours, even after reaching 100%. This feature is why you might find iOS devices like your Apple Watch only charging to 80%.

This capability helps you relax about risking damage to your phone battery by charging it overnight. For example, if you regularly plug your iPhone in at midnight and set your alarm for 8 AM, the phone predictively learns your habits. It will charge to 80% throughout the night and then pause — that final 20% charge will only finish shortly before it thinks you'll wake up. The benefit of this process is that your iPhone's battery spends less time in a high state of charge, thus reducing the chemical aging process.

This is perhaps the most scandalous myth about Apple. While it's rooted in a real event (the infamous "batterygate"), the intent is often misunderstood. Yes, Apple does slow down older iPhones, but not to force you to buy a new one; it's instead to manage performance issues that could result in random shutdowns.

As lithium-ion batteries degrade over time, their internal impedance increases. This means they become increasingly incapable of delivering the quick, sudden bursts of power that a modern CPU requires during intensive tasks. If the processor asks for sudden power and the battery can't offer it, the voltage drops, and your phone shuts down even though you still have battery left to protect the internal components.

To prevent these types of power failures, iOS applies what it calls "Performance Management." It's a system that dynamically throttles the peak performance of your phone's CPU and GPU to ensure it never requests more power than the battery can safely provide. This gradually leads to a comparatively slower phone. The general, overall performance of the phone is relatively unaffected, as you'll most likely notice reduced performance only when gaming, watching videos, or launching resource-consuming apps. It might be a frustrating experience, but Apple likely instituted the feature because it felt a slower phone was still better than one that shuts down without warning.