And Possibly a Puppy Potty
One in 10 pet owners say their furry friends damaged their gadgets, and about a third of those were smartphones, according to a survey by SquareTrade, the protection plan specialists.
The vast majority of damage was caused by puppies seeking more attention from their owners, and involved gnawed phones, chewed cables, and worse. One in six pet owners reported that their four-legged companions used the phone to (ahem) mark their territory
Every Phone Has a Weakness
The perfect handset has yet to be invented, and each has its own inherent flaws.
Samsung phones are famous for failed charge ports and power buttons, says SquareTrade’s Jessica Hoffman, while common iPhone issues include trouble-prone home and power buttons, and faulty batteries. EcoATM’s Mark Bowles says both Apple and Samsung models tend to crack near their charging ports. iDropped’s Charles Hibble says power button failures are both the most common and the most difficult to fix.
Baby slobber = liquid disaster
Given the lint, slime, bug parts, human waste, and puppy urine associated with smartphones, letting your rug rat use one as a teething ring is probably ill-advised. But baby slobber is not only bad for your future family scion, it’s also bad for your phone, claims the crack repair team at iCracked.
“For some reason, baby spit will immediately short out the charging port on an iPhone,” Forsythe says. “The scientific basis for this is as yet unknown, but babies are buckets of random meta-biological and disease-related stuff that makes them particularly weird.”