What Does Oleophobic Mean? Fingerprint Resistant Apple IPhone 3G

With the hype of Apple's new iPhone 3G recent release, you may have heard the new cash word 'oleophobic'. Do you know what oleophobic means? Not many of us do. Literally, oleophobic translated from Greek means "afraid of oil".

The first use I found for Oleophobic was by Gore and Assoc., with a suggested use in medical tubing or vents. Over all a generically applicable coating to protect a variety of surfaces. Oil is more difficult to keep out of things than water, so while hydrophobic coatings are great at protecting against water, oil was still a weakness. The new oleophobic membranes are able to protect against both water and oil.

So how, you may wonder does this have anything to do with Apple's new iPhone 3G. Every Apple iPhone user knows how quickly the screen can get smudged up. Bearing this frequent complaint in mind, Apple has created a fingerprint resistant screen on the new Apple iPhone 3G; an Oleophobic coating.

An Oleophobic coating is an oil resistant coating, to protect the phone from inatural finger oil or skin oil from your face while talking on the phone. Apple created a way to bond the new oleophobic coating to the glass surface of the phone.

Now, almost like magic, the lucky users of Apple's new iPhone 3G, will be blessed with a smudge free, or at least fingerprint resistant, screen. No more fingerprints, no more cheek smudges. Your glass screen will stay smudge free.

At least until the oleophobic coating wears off. What's that? Yes, rumors are already circulating that the new oleophobic coating might wear off. Reports are trickling in from forums around the world, with images of smudged screens and scratched oleophobic coatings. The new oleophobic coating might be oil resistant, but perhaps not durable enough to last and be scratch resistant. Hopefully for the new Apple iPhone 3G, these rumors are just that and the amazing oleophobic coating will last as long as the phone. Or at least until the next newer, faster, more amazing phone comes out.