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My friend told me that the salt in the air on the beach will reduce the lifespan of iPhone.

Is it true? If yes, is there anything I can do to "clean up" the salt in my iPhone?

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Why downvote this? – chiggsy Apr 24 '11 at 2:31

4 Answers

up vote 7 down vote accepted

I think your friend is confusing sea shanties with reality. What old mariners call "salt air" is really just the smell of decaying seaweed and dead fish.

Salt, being a solid crystal, can't evaporate, so if there's any "salt in the air" it would be in the form of salt rocks flying around. I imagine that's probably a lot less likely than "sand in the air", since there's typically not a lot of unsequestered salt at the beach. Also, I put salt crystals in glass all the time (e.g., measuring cups), and have yet to see the salt scratch the glass at all, so I think the chances of this hypothetical "salt in the air" causing damage to an iPhone are practically nonexistent.

I would worry more about a seagull pooping on it.

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-1. You've never lived near the ocean before have you? What an absolutely ridiculous answer. – Philip Regan Nov 23 '10 at 10:39
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This answer is right for the wrong reason so there's no need to downvote Philip. While salt doesn't evaporate, it is in the air near the ocean and can become the nuclei of raindrops. soest.hawaii.edu/GG/ASK/rain2.html – Jeff Swensen Nov 23 '10 at 13:45
Then tell that to my last car. Those exposed bits of metal just exploded into rust when I was living on the shoreline, but I don't have that problem now living inland. – Philip Regan Nov 23 '10 at 13:51
@Phillip I believe you’re mixing cars with iPhones. Neither of them are really composed primarily of the same materials. Unless you have a glass car… the metals in the iPhone are going to be more than ok after a few days @ the beach (unless you drop it in sand and sea water all the time), which is what the OP asked. – Martín Marconcini Nov 23 '10 at 14:05
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Philip: I grew up a mile from the ocean. The rust on your car was from salt water, not "salt in the air". – Ken Nov 23 '10 at 18:46
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up vote 3 down vote

Well, you iPhone is pretty well sealed. Unless you dropped the thing in the sand or ocean, you can probably just clean the outside with some safe cleaning product. (i.e. all purpose pledge, works for electronics, just spray onto rag first, then wipe phone).

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up vote 3 down vote

While its true that cars and many other metal objects will rust faster near the ocean, the salt is hardly relevant for your iPhone unless you plan on leaving it exposed on the beach for a few months straight.

The oils/sweat from your hands and the general movements in and out of your bag/pocket/etc will clean up the minute amount of residual salt that might be on it (:

On top of that, I'm pretty sure its well sealed enough that, unless you actually had water spray directly on it or dropped it in the ocean, the insides will be fine and salt free.

Finally, the metal on the outside is stainless steel, which is very resistant to rust...

In short, "she'll be right mate".

(The first gen iPhones did have speaker/mic holes in the case that were perfectly sized to trap sand in the holes and you'd lose volume/clarity, but that's about the only real beach worry I can think of, and not an issue from the 3G onwards with their finer mesh on the speaker/mic).

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up vote 3 down vote

Put the iphone in an unlubed condom. Navy Seals do this for their electronics. Works great.

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