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iPhone XS Max Worried that I damaged my phone by using Alcohol wipes.

D

DaBossIsHere

macrumors regular
Original poster
Aug 24, 2012
161
3
Hi everyone. This week I decided to change my old screen protector. Before installing the new one, I wiped the screen with the alcohol wipes that come with these screen protectors. I now discovered that it is not recommended to do so, since the alcohol can damage the oleophobic coating.

I never wiped alcohol before on my screen, and the phone had a screen protector installed on it from day 1.

Do you think the phone should be fine?

Thanks.
 
DaBossIsHere said:
Hi everyone. This week I decided to change my old screen protector. Before installing the new one, I wiped the screen with the alcohol wipes that come with these screen protectors. I now discovered that it is not recommended to do so, since the alcohol can damage the oleophobic coating.

I never wiped alcohol before on my screen, and the phone had a screen protector installed on it from day 1.

Do you think the phone should be fine?

Thanks.
Click to expand...

Your ‘display’ will be fine, but the alcohol wipe itself will remove the oleophobic coating, to what degree, that I don’t know.
 
chrono1081 said:
I use them all the time and never noticed any issue. Not saying its good to do so but I never had an issue.
Click to expand...

Well, you wouldn’t really ‘notice’ an issue, because it won’t damage the display, but will strip the Oleophobic coating. The display will look perfectly normal, but that protective coating will be worn away when using alcohol wipes.
 
DaBossIsHere said:
Do you think a lot of damage can happen with wiping the screen with alcohol once?
Click to expand...

As I said, there’s no ‘physical damage’ to the display, what you’re doing is essentially removing the oleophobic coating with the alcohol wipe, due to the concentration from the alcohol itself. So you’re not damaging really anything, but removing the protective coating.
 
Relentless Power said:
As I said, there’s no ‘physical damage’ to the display, what you’re doing is essentially removing the oleophobic coating with the alcohol wipe, due to the concentration from the alcohol itself. So you’re not damaging really anything, but removing the protective coating.
Click to expand...

Ok understood. I’ll take this as a lesson learnt.
[doublepost=1560857887][/doublepost]
Newtons Apple said:
ABSOLUTELY NOT!

You will get a hundred different opinions here. Take them all with a grain salt! That includes mine!
Click to expand...

Thank you your help
 
I have used a bunch of wipes on my iPhone that are probably not recommended.

Alcohol wipes, baby wipes, Clorox wipes, hand sanitizer on a paper towel just to name a few.

I am not saying another person should do what I do with their iPhone, but I haven't noticed any problems doing it to mine.
 
vertical smile said:
I have used a bunch of wipes on my iPhone that are probably not recommended.

Alcohol wipes, baby wipes, Clorox wipes, hand sanitizer on a paper towel just to name a few.

I am not saying another person should do what I do with their iPhone, but I haven't noticed any problems doing it to mine.
Click to expand...

Did you use any of those on an XS Max?
 
I’ve cleaned the screen on my 6s with alcohol wipes, Clorox wipes, gym wipes almost daily since 2015. Screen is perfectly fine. Oleophobic properties seem unchanged, I can’t see any fingerprints on it.
 
DaBossIsHere said:
Hi everyone. This week I decided to change my old screen protector. Before installing the new one, I wiped the screen with the alcohol wipes that come with these screen protectors. I now discovered that it is not recommended to do so, since the alcohol can damage the oleophobic coating.

I never wiped alcohol before on my screen, and the phone had a screen protector installed on it from day 1.

Do you think the phone should be fine?

Thanks.
Click to expand...
You're using a screen protector. What do you care if the coating is damaged? It's under your screen protector. If you can't see anything, there is no problem.
 
minimo3 said:
I’ve cleaned the screen on my 6s with alcohol wipes, Clorox wipes, gym wipes almost daily since 2015. Screen is perfectly fine. Oleophobic properties seem unchanged, I can’t see any fingerprints on it.
Click to expand...

This eases my mind... thanks
 
minimo3 said:
I’ve cleaned the screen on my 6s with alcohol wipes, Clorox wipes, gym wipes almost daily since 2015. Screen is perfectly fine. Oleophobic properties seem unchanged, I can’t see any fingerprints on it.
Click to expand...

I guarantee you removed the Oleophobic coating, regardless if you ‘can’t see fingerprints’. FYI, the Oleophobic coating is _not_ just for fingerprints, it’s also against minor scratches on the display. It’s naturally organic and will fade over time with usage from touching, but using wipes in your situation, easily removed it before you would even detect it.
 
The oleophobic coating is an overrated dry slick slime sprayed on the phone at the end of the manufacturing process. I have a 4 year old iPhone and my coating is long gone and not only don't I miss it, I'm really glad that slick crap is finally gone.
It doesn't do anything useful but make the phone 100X easier to drop and 1% easier to clean. Good riddance I say.
The next iPhone I get I'm going to intentionally strip that crap off the day I get it using solvent wipes. Yuck.
 
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I’ve never had one of those wipes supplied with screen protectors be anything other than bone dry. The little green packets have the number 1 and “alcohol wipe” brandished across but I’ve never been lucky enough to find a moist one, yet. Actually, judging by this thread..perhaps I have been lucky ;)
 
I use them weekly on my devices and haven’t had any issues. I prefer a screen without a screen protector so the coating would wear off from use anyway but, at a much slower rate. The coating isn’t permanent unless a tempered screen protector is installed at purchase and never removed.
 
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