Skip to main content

iPhone 11 Pro survives for 30 days at bottom of icy lake

There can’t be many things that would survive 30 days stuck at the bottom of an icy lake. But an iPhone 11 Pro defied the odds when it did just that.

Canadian Angie Carriere recently decided to celebrate her 50th birthday with a spot of ice fishing in Waskesiu Lake, some 280 miles east of Edmonton.

Recommended Videos

At one point during the fishing expedition she had her phone resting on her knee when a gust of wind caught the tent she was in. As she went to grab the tent, the phone slid off her knee and fell straight into the lake.

Speaking to CTV (below) about the unfortunate incident, Carriere admitted that shortly before her phone disappeared into the icy water, she’d been warning her daughter to be careful with her own handset.

iPhone spends weeks at the bottom of frozen Sask. lake and it still works

At first, Carriere had no desire to rescue the phone from the freezing lake. Later, however, she had a change of heart, seeing its retrieval as a challenge.

Two visits to the lake to search for her iPhone 11 Pro ended without any breakthrough, with the phone apparently lost forever. But on a third visit, Carriere and her friends managed to locate it.

With the iPhone 11 Pro in their sights, they attached a magnet to a fishing line and lowered it into the lake in an effort to grab the device and haul it up from the lake bed. The plan worked, and Carriere had her phone back.

Amazingly, after charging it, it powered up.

“There’s nothing about the phone that doesn’t work,” Carriere said, adding, “It’s amazing.”

Apple says the iPhone 11 Pro, which came out in 2019, has a rating of IP68, meaning it can handle a maximum depth of 4 meters of water for up to 30 minutes. Clearly, it’s not expected to survive 30 days at the bottom of a freezing cold lake, but according to Carrier’s adventure, it did.

The story brings to mind a similar incident from last month when a man jumped into an icy harbor in a desperate bid to rescue his phone.

Despite being submerged for several hours (the phone, not the man!), the iPhone XS still worked fine. But then, if Carriere’s phone survived for a month, what’s a few hours in similar conditions?

Trevor Mogg
Contributing Editor
Not so many moons ago, Trevor moved from one tea-loving island nation that drives on the left (Britain) to another (Japan)…
My main computer is an M4 iPad Pro, but a 2021 iPad still surprises me
Rear shell of 2021 iPad Pro.

This might sound controversially ridiculous, but for the past few years, my primary computer has been an iPad Pro. I first got interested in pushing tablets this way when the M1 version came out, and I’ve kept using them all the way up to the newest M4-powered model. 

A few weeks ago, I went back to my M1 iPad Pro to see how well it handles next-gen apps that are pushing the boundaries of graphics and AI on a mobile device. So, the big question is whether the four-year-old slate can still serve as a reliable workhorse in 2025?

Read more
iPhone theft victim sues Apple. It sparks a new hope for others, too
The iPhone 16 sticking out of someone's pocket.

Smartphones are the center of our digital existence. Not just because they open the doors for communication and social connection, but also due to their role as gatekeepers of our financial and professional lives. 

Needless to say, a stolen iPhone can upend your life in many ways, but it’s even harder to recover those precious files stored on the device. A few victims of iPhone theft may finally have a chance, thanks to a lawsuit against Apple over not offering enough help in recovery efforts.

Read more
I tested the Pixel 9a and iPhone 16e’s cameras, and the two almost tied
A person holding the Google Pixel 9a and Apple iPhone 16e.

The Google Pixel 9a’s arch rival, almost regardless of whether you are trying to decide which one to buy, is the Apple iPhone 16e. Just like dogs chase cats, a new Pixel phone will go up against an iPhone in a camera test at some point, and over the past week or so, we’ve worked to answer the question of which phone takes better photos, the Pixel 9a or the iPhone 16e.
The camera specs
Google Pixel 9a (left) and Apple iPhone 16e Andy Boxall / Digital Trends

The two phones have very different camera systems. The Google Pixel 9a has a 48-megapixel main camera with an f/1.7 aperture and optical image stabilization (OIS), plus a 13MP wide-angle camera with an f/2.2 aperture and a 120-degree field of view. On the front is a 13MP selfie camera.

Read more