A new survey indicates we've spent nearly $6 billion on repairs and replacements to damaged iPhones. And the device is 10 times more likely to be accidentally damaged than lost or stolen.

Are you one of those people who has to upgrade with every iPhone iteration? Let me give you two pieces of advice:

  • The iPhone 5 is probably just as hard to hold on to as its predecessors.
  • IPhones can't swim.

Impact and water are the top dangers to iPhones, according to a new survey from the consumer electronics warranty company SquareTrade. And it's costing users a pretty penny.
Think "billions."


Some $5.9 billion has been spent on insurance deductibles, repair and replacement since the brand's 2007 introduction, the report says. Not that everyone is willing to pay big bucks for repairs: 6% of the 2,000 survey respondents said they used tape on their cracked phones.
The top five ways phones are damaged or destroyed:

  1. Phone dropped from hand.
  2. Phone fell into a toilet, swimming pool or lake.
  3. Phone dropped from lap.
  4. Phone knocked off a table.
  5. Phone drenched by "some liquid."

"We were astonished at how many people drop their phones in the toilet, as well as how frequently an innocuous drop from the hand actually killed the device," says Ty Shay of SquareTrade.

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