Amid Coronavirus Outbreak, Apple Confirms That It's Okay to Clean Your iPhone With Disinfectant
Apple today updated its support document on cleaning Apple products with new information that confirms it's okay to to use a 70 percent isopropyl alcohol wipe or Clorox Disinfecting Wipes for the purpose of cleaning germs from your devices.
Prior to now, Apple's cleaning guidelines have recommended against all cleaners, warning that the chemicals have the potential to damage the oleophobic coating on iPhone and iPad displays. Apple still warns against aerosol sprays, ammonia, window cleaners, hydrogen peroxide, bleach, compressed air, and abrasives:
Using a 70 percent isopropyl alcohol wipe or Clorox Disinfecting Wipes, you may gently wipe the hard, nonporous surfaces of your Apple product, such as the display, keyboard, or other exterior surfaces. Don't use bleach. Avoid getting moisture in any opening, and don't submerge your Apple product in any cleaning agents. Don't use on fabric or leather surfaces.
Apple also says to avoid spraying cleaners directly onto your devices and to avoid getting moisture into the openings.
Apple's updated guidelines come as the coronavirus continues to spread around the world. Given that most people use their iPhones and other devices constantly, it's important to be able to disinfect them to cut down on virus spread through surfaces.
It's not entirely clear how long the virus lasts on surfaces, but various studies have found that it can survive on glass or plastic for as little as two hours or as long as nine days.
The Wall Street Journal's Joanna Stern tested Apple's new guidelines over the course of the last week. Using a new iPhone 8, she wiped the display 1,095 times with Clorox Disinfecting Wipes, the estimated equivalent of the number of times an iPhone might be cleaned over the course of three years.
After all the wiping, the oleophobic coating on the iPhone's display was in good condition with no perceived damage.
Popular Stories
Apple has announced it will be holding a special event on Tuesday, May 7 at 7 a.m. Pacific Time (10 a.m. Eastern Time), with a live stream to be available on Apple.com and on YouTube as usual. The event invitation has a tagline of "Let Loose" and shows an artistic render of an Apple Pencil, suggesting that iPads will be a focus of the event. Subscribe to the MacRumors YouTube channel for more ...
Apple has dropped the number of Vision Pro units that it plans to ship in 2024, going from an expected 700 to 800k units to just 400k to 450k units, according to Apple analyst Ming-Chi Kuo. Orders have been scaled back before the Vision Pro has launched in markets outside of the United States, which Kuo says is a sign that demand in the U.S. has "fallen sharply beyond expectations." As a...
The upcoming iOS 17.5 update for the iPhone includes only a few new user-facing features, but hidden code changes reveal some additional possibilities. Below, we have recapped everything new in the iOS 17.5 and iPadOS 17.5 beta so far. Web Distribution Starting with the second beta of iOS 17.5, eligible developers are able to distribute their iOS apps to iPhone users located in the EU...
Apple is finally planning a Calculator app for the iPad, over 14 years after launching the device, according to a source familiar with the matter. iPadOS 18 will include a built-in Calculator app for all iPad models that are compatible with the software update, which is expected to be unveiled during the opening keynote of Apple's annual developers conference WWDC on June 10. AppleInsider...
Apple has stopped production of FineWoven accessories, according to the Apple leaker and prototype collector known as "Kosutami." In a post on X (formerly Twitter), Kosutami explained that Apple has stopped production of FineWoven accessories due to its poor durability. The company may move to another non-leather material for its premium accessories in the future. Kosutami has revealed...
Apple Vision Pro, Apple's $3,500 spatial computing device, appears to be following a pattern familiar to the AR/VR headset industry – initial enthusiasm giving way to a significant dip in sustained interest and usage. Since its debut in the U.S. in February 2024, excitement for the Apple Vision Pro has noticeably cooled, according to Bloomberg's Mark Gurman. Writing in his latest Power On...
Top Rated Comments
The best course of action is to wash your hands after touching shared surfaces and don't touch your mouth. That will limit transmission.
Our bodies need to be exposed to bacteria and known viruses to build immunities, so there's a risk of our personal worlds becoming "too clean" and making future outbreaks even worse because our bodies are not ready. Don't clean too much, just be reasonable.
Please stop with the downplaying. It's a serious situation with a lot of unknowns still. You'd re-evaluate yourself if you or a family member got seriously ill with the virus. Suddenly everything would look very different to you.
arn
You think you're being smart, when you're really not. The coronavirus has existed for approximately three months.
The flu doesn't have between a 2 and 5% mortality rate. The flu's mortality rate is around 0.1%. The coronavirus has been closer to 5% here in America, largely due to Washington.