can an app detect if my phone has water damage?

• See all worldwide telephone support numbers
• Contact a mobile carrier
• Find an Apple Authorized Service Provider
• Visit an Apple Retail Store

• View - Apple Support & Service Options:
• https://getsupport.apple.com/SASOLocaleAction.action

You may be able to locate an Authorized Service Provider who

is not an Apple Store location, that does have test equipment

and could see if a moisture detection circuit in the iPhone has

any indication of being exposed to water in excess of tolerance.

•Apple - Find Locations - Country Selector (add likely cities in each)

https://locate.apple.com/country

Since most Apple iPhone repair in some areas is tied to service

and the provider resellers, you may have to check that angle in

places where an official retail Apple Store does not exist...

Good luck & happy computing! 🙂

This may be helpful: https://support.apple.com/en-us/ht3302

From a cursory check it appears that most phones use color changing stickers - that change color when wet.

The most likely reason that there "water damage" apps, may simply be because a sticker is not a sensor.

That data might be available in an MDM (managed) environment but not for an app to be made available in the iTunes App Store.

Login to the developer forums at https://devforums.apple.com and you'll be able to find that yourself.

Not that I know of but your local Apple Store can tell you pretty quickly

No third-party apps have access to this kind of data.

Perhaps an app that Apple uses at the Genius Bar but certainly not an app created by someone other than Apple.

Because they don't have any reason to access it.

I haven't seen any kind of guideline but there is no API in the iOS SDK for accessing data like this so one can assume it's off-limits.

Doubtful.

You can check that for yourself by searching the Xcode documentation.

And the support article has nice pictures of those

items with their visible moisture tabs activated...

Nice. No battery, spatula or spork required. 🙂