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Report: iPhone 3G S Smartphones Overheating
Photo courtesy flickr user "gillyberlin" under a Creative Commons 2.0 attribution license.
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Jason Mick/DailyTech
June 29, 2009
Apple boldly advertises the slogan “It just works”, but Apple has its share of issues just like any other tech company. Among the recent problems included Mac display issues (which have been ongoing for over a year) and iPhone signal issues (also a year old problem).
Now another familiar problem has been reported. Apple’s hot new iPhone is not just getting hot figuratively, it’s getting hot literally. Reports of Apple’s handsets turning toasty and colorizing from white to a toasty brown or rosy pink have been widely reported.
Reportedly, the phones are more likely to overheat when playing games or using the GPS. The iPhone 3G S packs a much faster CPU and graphics processor than its predecessor, a likely source of the heating issues. However, Apple thus far has denied the reports and refused to comment that there is a problem with the handsets.
Melissa J. Perenson of PC World is among those whose iPhone 3G S is overheating. She writes, “And at some point, I became aware the handset had become very hot. Very, very hot — not just on the back, but the entire length of the front face, too. I was using a game, and then later the Web browser for reading the news about Michael Jackson, all over a Wi-Fi connection while plugged in. And in those circumstances, well…toasty doesn’t even describe how surprisingly hot it got. It was too hot to even put the phone against my face. No discoloration to report, though; I have the black handset, and didn’t see any effects.”
OS power management also may be to blame. Reportedly, iPhones and iPod touches upgraded to the new OS v3.0 have also been heating up. Writes Wired.com‘s Charlie Sorrel, “To add to the confusion, I have noticed my 2G iPod Touch getting a lot hotter than usual since updating to the v3.0 software. This happens while web browsing, and the battery is draining fast, too. I have no idea if this is related, but if it is it could point at some bad power-management software in OS 3.0.”
Ultimately, it may be a combination of hardware and firmware power management that’s causing the new iPhone to overload.
© 2009, DailyTech
ccorliss
4 months ago
164 comments
And another failure from apple....
Regardless of how much you use it, it should not get so hot that it causes color changes, and makes it to hot to even use, that indicates a complete engineering failure.
HernanJV
4 months ago
38 comments
Apple and Microsoft are the same. Although their products are great, when their customers find problems with them, they say that the problems are just people's overactive imaginations and they do everything to avoid fixing the problem.
iPerk
4 months ago
76 comments
consider your pocket oven an Easter Egg feature. :-P
I have the 2nd fleet of iPhone, and it gets hot too. My old Razr got hot. Every phone I've ever had got hot when you used it nonstop.
Maybe people are just using their iPhones nonstop because of the multitude of features, instead of putting down their cell phone to use another device to get their news or play a game. Hmmm?
verakot
4 months ago
116 comments
All cell phones become hot when you talk too much on the phone... so don't. iPhone is not an exception from that rule.
j_butt
4 months ago
2 comments
I have the original iPhone 3g and since upgrading to the 3.0 software I haven't noticed any heat issues whatsoever, I can have my iPod on, browsing the web, using gps and texting all without any issue, so I doubt it's power management in the 3.0 software
goodguy20k
4 months ago
4 comments
Cook an egg? Yep, we got an app for that. ;-)
I agree, it's nice to see that Apple has flaws. Let everyone. Like all companies. Let's see if Apple admits to it, though. My bet is they won't, but that a v3.001 release will silently show up, hype will be made about what features are in it, while all it is is a patch for the power management, slowing the devices down.
Of course, we'll never really know. ;-)
Account Removed
4 months ago
If we can use the iPhone to cook with it, it is even better.
Enabler
4 months ago
2902 comments
As much as I like the iPhone, I can't help but delight in Apple appearing to be a normal company after all, i.e. with the usual product issues.