Short answer

4 steps
  1. Skip the rice.
  2. Shake water out of the ports and speaker, then wipe the phone dry.
  3. Leave it in front of a fan or in a dry room, ports facing down.
  4. Use a water eject tone to clear the speaker grille.

Why rice doesn’t help much

Uncooked rice absorbs moisture from the air around it, but slowly. The water that matters is inside the phone, behind gaskets and in small gaps around the port. Rice never touches that water. All it can do is lower the humidity in the bag a little, and sealing the phone in a bag also cuts off the airflow that actually carries moisture away.

Meanwhile the grains do real harm. Fine starch dust works its way into the charging port and speaker mesh, and it turns into paste when it meets water. Small fragments can wedge in the port and block the cable.

What Apple says

Apple’s own guidance for a liquid-detected alert says not to put an iPhone in a bag of rice, because small particles of rice could damage it. Instead it recommends tapping the phone gently against your hand with the connector facing down and leaving it in a dry area with some airflow.

What dries a phone faster

  1. Gravity. Tap the phone, port-down and then earpiece-down, against your palm.
  2. Sound for the speaker. A 165 Hz tone vibrates the speaker cone and pushes trapped water out through the grille. Rice can’t reach the speaker at all.
  3. Moving air. A desk fan at room temperature beats any bag. Stand the phone upright with the port facing down.
  4. Silica gel, if you have it. The packets that come in shoe boxes and electronics are a far better desiccant than rice and don’t shed dust. Put the phone in an open container with them, not a sealed bag.

Why people still swear by it

Most phones that went into rice would have recovered anyway. Modern phones are water resistant, and a phone left alone for a day dries out whether it’s in rice, on a shelf or in front of a fan. The rice just got the credit. The difference is that on the shelf, nothing ends up stuck in the port.

Already put it in rice?

Take it out and check the port and speaker grille with a flashlight. Knock out any grains by tapping the phone port-down. Don’t blow into the port, since your breath is humid. Then follow the full wet phone guide and wait for the port to dry before charging.