Very Strange Smell

Sounds eerily familiar. Years ago, the firm I worked for had to have Compaq technicians sent out to repair over 500 laptops because somehow, they neglected to was the flux off of the system boards during the manufacturing process. It produced a smell that sounds very much like this and eventually cause them to fail. I think Compaq definitely lost money on that deal. We were a large consultancy (one of the big 5 that is no more). They wanted us to send the laptops in to have them repaired, but we argued until they actually dispatched technicians to over 100 locations to fix this. The labor costs alone probably consumed twice what they initially profited from selling us the machines.

I have this same problem.

Plugging my head phones into the port, I heard this subtle noise, sounded like air escaping, and now all I can smell is this nailpolish odor. Smells exactly like the iPhone did when it first came out of the box.

This odor is constant. I am affraid to even use my device so it is now shut down completely. interesting, the battery pack is located directly under the head phone jack area.

If the battery pack did get punctured, is it pone to leaking and causing excessive damage?

Also, does anyone find the Apple Support website to be difficult to figure out where to look for information? I find that it does not have an efficient design and I frequently get lost.

CharlesHubner: I think your tinfoil hat is on a little too tight.

I recently went through a hardware swap last week for the iPhone 4 and am experiencing the same nail polish/varnish smell emanating from the headphone and power ports. The smell was present immediately after I took off the protective plastic sheets from the front & back the day I got it.

I'm probably going to take the phone back to see if there's an internal problem, such as a battery or capacitor leak of some sort.

I just received an iPhone 4s, fresh from Shenzen, China. Immediately upon opening the box I could smell what smelled like a strong acetone or nail-polish remover smell. It seemed especially strong on the underside of the two plastic strips that were covering the entire front and back of the phone. I have personally unboxed 6 iPhones between my self, friends and family and have never smelt this before.

I've attempted to gently clean the surfaces of the phone with a moist microfiber rag to see if the smell would go away, but it is very persistent, exactly as everyone here has described.

I would suspect that this is some sort of a quality-control error, such as a missing step in the production process such as a rinse or something that would remove this smell from the gorilla glass.

I will be calling Apple Care tomorrow to see what they say about it.

I noticed my phone had this smell as well coming from the headphone jack. I have noticed this iPhone's battery is noticably worse than pevious iPhone 4 models I have had. I looked it up online (found this thread among other sites discussing this issue) and decided to bring my phone to the Apple Store. I did this mainly because I read a few places that this may be a hazardous smell and/or something seriously wrong with the battery.

I went to the Apple Story and kind of felt like an idiot. The "genius" that helped me said he could not smell anything (although he did admit to smelling something but disregarded it to being "in his head"). I told him I just want to make sure this won't be hazardous and my battery wont all of a sudden fry. He took my phone to other employees and also to look up the issue online. He came back saying he could find nothing online and no one else had smelled anything. At this point I started to feel like a moron. He then proceeded to take off the iPhone back cover to check out the battery. I smelled the actual battery and could definitely smell the nail polish type smell. He smelled it and again said he smelt nothing. He took off his own phone and told me to smell it, I did and didn't smell anything like mine. He then said mine smelled exactly like his. By now I just wanted to get out of there as it was apparent I either have a insanely accute sense of smell or I am crazy. Either way this guy wasn't going to help me.

Definitely be cautious about bringing your phones in if you smell something like this. Unless you don't really care about looking like a moron in front of other employees. Others I have talked to about it can definitely smell it, but for some reason none of the employees at the Apple Store in Lincoln Park, Chicago couldn't.

This is a form of marketing that is becoming more and more common. Apple has INTENTIONALLY worked with a firm that develops fragrances in order to give each new iPhone 4s the smell of... Apples! Some may disagree that this scent is similar to "apples", but nevertheless this was Apples intention.

Somehow they've engineered a way to periodically or by cause & effect (ie; installing/removing ear bud jack), release or "project" the smell from the device. This is why from time to time the scent appears stronger than at others.

We have 3 iPhone 4s devices in our household and the experience is congruent between all.

I personally love the scent, but I am somewhat concerned with the chemicals used to produce the fragrance.

There are MILLIONS of people with sensitvities to this sort of thing. So although this was "cool" or creative from a marketing standpoint, it was definitely INsensitive from a users standpoint.

***You who are reading this... YOU have greatness in you. At any moment you can decide to step INTO your greatness and reveal what you have to offer to the entire WORLD. What we need now more than ever is for people like YOU to REFUSE to die without leaving something of lasting value and significance to the world. CHOOSE to what YOU want to do and do it. I know you think and dream about what you truly want for yourself. And we can ONLY dream of things that are possible for US. Even if it has never been done before. We have too much evidence to deny that living a life of great significance, regardless of where we started or are at currently at in our lives. What we have or don't have. What we know or don't know. Open your eyes when you look in the mirror and FACE yourself. Stop allowing the unimportant to prevent you from the important. You have greatness in you. I don't believe this, I KNOW this. Never, never, never give up on yourself.***

Hi to everyone, this is my first post on this forum and I wanted to say that I had the same problem with my iPhone 4s and I did go into the mac store and everyone in the store that I asked said that they did smell a toxic fume coming from the phone, I told them that it is making me sick as well. So the Genius Bar technician took it in the back where he tested the phone. A few minutes later the gentlemen came out sand said my phone as well as the battery was running prefect. He than said that all batteries smell like that but mine happens to smell more (I wish he could have my phone for a day a see what I'm going through) He gave me an options to buy a new phone for $224 including taxes, since its not on warranty anymore since and I do not have that kind of cash on me I am wondering if there is anyone out there that can tell me how toxic those fumes are and why apple is willing to risk this kind of problem?

Hiee All.. 😉
Recently my iphone 4s was accidently kept in freezer..
when I took it out from there it was **** cold so i jst gave it some heat by using dryer.Since that day my iphone gets switched off whenever it reaches battery level near 80%..it is not under warrenty nd it has been opend so thr is no option to take it to apple store..i ws listening songs whn i smelled sumthng wierd as i removed my head phone,I think its that smell which u all r talking about..So i took it to a proffesional nd he said that its the battery problem..So i prefer to those who cant change there phone that go and get ur iphone's battery checked..

Please don't 'wake up dead' before you get there or you'll have me feeling really REALLY guilty! 😉