It is a well-known fact that uncooked rice sucks moisture out of the air. It is the same principle as silica gel packs that often come with electronics (i.e. the desiccant / do not eat stuff), only, rice is usually more readily available. Either one results in water evaporating more quickly.
That said, neither rice nor silica gel save it from the minerals that come from most water encounters. But that hair dryer idea is even worse. It will drive the water (and thus the minerals) deeper into the phone and cook the electronics, accelerating their premature failure.
The cleanest, best solution is of course to take it apart and get the water removed & cleaned before it dries, but that is not always possible to do in a jiffy, especially with a pentalobular iPhone 4 which requires that special screwdriver. Electronics engineers are handy to have around, they can do some special ultrasonic or alcoholic cleaning to it.
The only thing that has ever happened is that the light is still on - so we know the battery isn't dead. My honey is going to be so sad that she won't be able to upgrade and get the iPhone 5. It's all she's been talking about for month. Her Apple Care expired in June - so the cost to fix it is the same as the cost for a new phone ~150 - 200.
For an enlightened forum I'm surprised people believe this myth about rice able to miraculously suck water out of an iPhone that's been dropped in water....
