CNET has posted a link to a video from a Houston TV station that is of their “consumer reporter” complaining that sweat can kill iPhones. Here’s the segment transcribed, via CNET:
“I never would’ve bought a phone if I knew it would ruin the first time I got it out at the gym,” Stacie Keneker said.
“They sell all these accessories that you are supposed to be able to use at the gym to make it convenient,” Lee Pittman complained.
But “convenient” is the last word Pittman and Keneker said they’d use to describe their iPhone experience.
“I would like a phone that works,” Keneker said, holding up her iPhone that constantly resets itself.
“This phone is worthless to me now. It’s useless,” said Pittman, whose iPhone will no longer let him make calls.
When their iPhones stopped working properly, both said Apple employees told them a moisture sensor on their devices had been tripped.
“It happens all the time,” said Pittman, repeating what he said an Apple employee at the Willowbrook, Texas, store told him. “He said they have this issue all the time.”
What happens? Apparently sweat happens.
Both Keneker and Pittman use their iPhones at the gym to listen to music or use the calorie-counting fitness applications that actually come with the phone. They said Apple employees told them their sweaty palms are the likely culprit here.
“If this was going to be sensitive enough where you can’t use it at the gym, why don’t they have a cover there?” asked Pittman, pointing to the opening where the charger plugs into the iPhone.
And here’s CNET’s analysis of the story:
I discussed the consumer complaints with Amy and decided that the iPhone failure in one case was probably an honest accident–the user apparently has sweaty hands and tripped the sensor on the bottom of the iPhone 3G. It is hard to believe that this alone would kill the only-three-week-old iPhone. I hope that the Apple Store employees are only voiding warranties if both sensors are tripped, but I was not able to verify this either with Apple.
I realized something else when speaking to Amy about the iPhone and any Apple product with a water damage sensor: unlike on other cell phones, the moisture sensors are very accessible. On most cell phones, the sensors are located underneath a removable battery and enclosed by the cover that usually locked the battery into place. One would suspect that since those sensors were deep inside of the device, that they were better judges of whether or not you dropped the cell phone in a puddle.
In comparison, Apple’s sensor (at the bottom of the iPhone) could easily be set off by sweat from your hands. You can see the sensor locations for a iPhone 3G in the photo above and a Nokia cell phone below for comparison.
There are a few things about this that make me mad. First of all, it’s a news story about someone who has sour grapes over their iPhone getting damaged - that’s not news.
My second concern comes from CNET’s problem about where the iPhone liquid damage indicators are. The case is solid - so it’d be pointless to have a liquid indicator inside the iPhone somewhere. The 3G model has two liquid indicators - one in the headphone jack (like the first iPhone) and one tucked up inside the case above the dock connector.
That indicator couldn’t be tripped “easily… by sweat from your hands” unless you held the iPhone upside down. Or y our sweat can crawl around on its own.
And why did there compare an iPhone to a Nokia?