[Macworld]

Post your comments for Bugs & Fixes: iPhones that are too hot to handle here

[morwen]

I had this had this happen to me once with my new 3GS. I had turned on bluetooth to use with a headset (something I never did with my 3G of course, in fact I never had bluetooth turned on with my 3G). After I turned off the headset and put my iPhone down on my desk, I picked it up about 30 mins to an hour later and it was scorchingly hot.
Exploring on it to try to figure out what was going on, the only conclusion I came to was that bluetooth, having disconnected from the headset I had been using, had been spinning its wheels the entire time looking for a new bluetooth connection. I turned bluetooth off and my phone quickly cooled down.
I would have thought leaving the bluetooth settings would cause it to stop searching, or at the very least that there would be a search time out or something, but that doesn't appear to be the case (or its not working on my iPhone.:)).

[cycomachead]

I got my first iPhone the day after the 3GS came out; so, my new 3GS is the only iPhone experience I have. But, I've done a lot of game playing in a week. It can occasionally get warm, but nothing bad. ANd yes: It's the processor use.

The iPhone IS a small computer. Run games on your MacBook, it gets warm. This is nothing new.

[ObiWandreas]

"While some users have put their iPhone in a freezer, to accelerate cooling off,
I don't recommend this."

Alright, boys and girls, can you say "thermal shock"?

Message was edited by: ObiWandreas

[rab777hp]

Remember the story about the one that caught fire in someone's pocket in india?
I don't buy phones that catch fire so easily, sorry, but apple, you at least need to produce a non-lethal product before i start paying attention (or paying anything else lol)

[vinod1978]

From what I heard some people are jailbreaking their phones and using plugins to get flash. Flash is very CPU intensive, and might be causing this issue with jailbroken phones. I wonder if this 1 guy did this - which would be an obvious reason why his phone turned brown.

[Wingspinner]

Part of the problem is that many, if not most, users put plastic cases on their iPhones which destroys the ability of the phone to properly cool itself. An apple engineer once told me that the iPhone was not designed to be able to run at full performance when enclosed in a case. He actually said "could not" be designed to do so because the cases do not allow air to circulate around the device and provide an effective insulating layer. He also said that under normal circumstances the iPhone will power manage itself so as to prevent overheating (yes that's right your iPhone will run slower with your fancy fancy case on it) but that some apps demand so much from the hardware that even the selfmanagement can be overwhelmed - although never to the point of being dangerous unless there is an actual failure in the hardware. He said the worst case scenario is an active 3g connection with an active wifi transmitter, bluetooth searching for a device, while some heavy graphics and CPU intensive app running. The transmitters in the device can generate a tremendous amount of heat when the connections are marginal because the software cranks up the output power to compensate for bad connections and the RF amps become less efficient at high power levels as with all phones. Lastly the graphics chip uses a tremendous amount of power when fully utilized. While great advances have been made in power managment the bottom line is that the most powerful devices are going to generate the most heat. The iPhone is a marvel with a full blown computer more powerful than what many people still have on their desktop plus a bunch of radio transmitters and an incredible amount of memory along with an LCD display and backlight. Truly incredible it even exists and runs for more than 5 Mina on suck a tiny battery. The iPhone is on the leading edge of power efficient technology. There is nothing out there that offers as much functionality And performance in such a small package at such low power levels - nothing. Remove the case you have on the thing and most likely you'll be fine.

[3587]

I haven't experienced this yet, but what I have experienced is the super flakey WiFi connection and the quick battery draining! I'm not the only either... Take a look at the Apple Discussion forums and the MacRumors forums... These two issues have the most threads in them.

[Scully]

You wrote: "So far as I know, it is the only instance of this happening. In other words, with Apple having reported sales of 1 million iPhone 3GS models during its first weekend of sales, this overheated iPhone is one in a million. As such, I wouldn’t worry that this is going to happen to your iPhone 3GS any time soon—if ever."
If only that statement were true. You really don't get out much, d you? This issue has been reported in other countries, as well as by several people I personally know, so it's not an isolated, or "one-in-a-million" issue.
It would seem to be a battery issue, which has the very real potential of explosions or fire. As such, I'm aware that Apple is tracking reports of this and investigating to determine a cause and a solution.
So before you go around telling people to ignore something that can easily happen to them, you need to do more research so you know what you're talking about. You clearly didn't do that here.

[sddawson]

I read the comment as meaning that only one iPhone had turned brown, not that only one had overheated. I'm interested, did you mean that the people you know also had phones that had turned brown?

[sddawson]

I read the comment as meaning that only one iPhone had turned brown, not that only one had overheated. I'm interested, did you mean that the people you know had phones that had turned brown?

[ted_landau]

RE: "If only that statement were true. You really don't get out much, d you? This issue has been reported in other countries, as well as by several people I personally know, so it's not an isolated, or "one-in-a-million" issue."

I obviously have never experienced this issue myself. I know of no other person, either directly or via my Internet connections, that has had this problem. And, after conducting an (admittedly brief) search of the Web, I found no other reports of this symptom. That is what led to my conclusion.

That said, I can't say I am surprised that other instances may exist. Given that it happened once, it seems almost inevitable that it happen more than once. Still, I remain confident that the number of instances is very small -- and the overall point I was making remains valid.

More generally, although I don't see this as relevant one way or the other, you are correct that I don't get out much. :)

[warlock7]

So glad we can rely on your personal testimony about all of those friends you claim to have... :P

[Caldwell1]

Not 1 in a million. I have a white 3GS that overheated and discolored while I was taking a video. I haven't noticed any performance degradation but defiantly see the discoloration problem.