July 10th, 2007
iPhone Diary Day 12: Keeping your screen clean
Easily the best iPhone feature is its gorgeous 3.5-inch (diagonal) widescreen multi-touch display. The 480-by-320-pixel, 160 dpi screen is revolutionary and the Apple even filed a 29-page patent application in 2004 for what it calls a “multipoint touch screen.”
The only downside to the gorgeous ice hockey rink-shaped display is that it’s a dirt magnet.
Because the face of iPhone is completely flush with the outer bezel, there’s nothing to act as a spacer to keep it off your skin when it’s held up to your face. I’ve been trying to get into the habit of hovering iPhone away from my ear and cheek while using it. I’ve also been trying to use my Jawbone Bluetooth headset almost exclusively - but sometimes it’s not charged or I just can’t grab it in time.
Apple includes a little a rectangular, black cleaning cloth with iPhone and it works ok, but after heavy iPhone use the Apple cloth only pushes the grease around the display and does little or nothing to actually remove it.
One solution that I’ve found is Falcon/Dust-Off Monitor Wipes. They’re basic isopropyl alcohol wipes that are available for US$9 for a canister of 80 online (and at Best Buy) and they’re terrific at clearing off the layer of grease that builds up on the iPhone display. One wipe can easily clean your iPhone, MacBook and an external display and I find myself using about one per day. We’ll see how long that lasts…
How do you keep your iPhone screen clean?
Jason D. O'Grady is the editor of PowerPage.org, which has been publishing daily mobile technology news since December 1995. For disclosures on Jason's industry affiliations, click here or to view Jason's full profile click here.
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