Slashdot Mirror
Some Overheating 3GS iPhones Glow Pink
Hugh Pickens writes "The Telegraph reports that dozens of users of the recently released iPhone 3GS have reported overheating issues, with some iPhone owners unable to pick up the device because the handset gets so hot to the touch, while others say the casing turns pink with the heat. 'I am definitely experiencing issues with the iPhone running warm and quick battery life lost,' writes Tom Goldstein on one discussion board. 'The phone seems to warm up almost immediately if I am doing anything that pulls data over the network.' Some users have said the device has been too hot to put to their ear while making a phone call, and others say the overheating seems to occur when owners are using the iPhone's mapping software, which uses the handset's built-in GPS technology. Melissa J. Perenson writes at PC World: '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.' Some gadget experts believe faulty batteries could be the cause of overheating and poor battery life. 'My guess is there's going to be a whole lot of batteries affected because these [iPhones] are from very large production runs,' said Aaron Vronko, who fixes iPods and iPhones. 'If you have a problem in the design of a series of batteries, it's probably going to be spread to tens of thousands [of device], if not hundreds of thousands, and maybe more.'"
Simple logic shows these claims to be provably false:
1. 'teh iPhone' is 'teh Best Thing Ever'
2. 'teh Best Thing Ever' obviously doesn't overheat and discolour
Therefore
'teh iPhone' doesn't overheat and discolour.
QED
it isn't a bug, it's a feature
My Android G1 - normally cool (in the thermal sense) heats quickly when using GPS for sustained periods. It doesn't become uncomfortable to hold or to use but it's definitely noticable. My bet is that the iPhone problem is also GPS related.
I'm old enough to remember when discussions on Slashdot were well informed.
Apple can just deal with this like everyone else, right? You know, send a whole bunch of batteries to the retail stores, and those affected can come in, pop off the back of the phone, replace the battery, and drop off the old one. No need to send the phone back or anything.
It's a pony-phone!
Media that can be recorded and distributed can be recorded and distributed.
-kfg
... testing anyone?
It seems Apple has a hard time learning that electronics cause heat and that this heat needs to be led away from the device.
I can remember several cases ( MacBooks, iMacs, what have you) where they've had overheating issues ... pretty sloppy engineering if you ask me.
---
"The chances of a demonic possession spreading are remote -- relax."
Glowing pink.... is that a bug or a feature?
An iPhone is heat is gay ?
Having just upgraded from the first iPhone to the 3GS I have to say I am disappointed with the battery life on the new handset, it's certainly not the improvement I was expecting from reviews. With Wi-Fi and location services turned off and very light usage I can get just about 2 days out of it, normal use sees it being recharged every night which is inferior to the old model. I was contemplating returning it to O2 but before I did that I wanted to know if there are any standard tests to see if my battery is that much worse than normal, e.g. the phone plays a movie for 5.5 hours at 75% brightness or play music through headphones for 9 hours from full charge etc. Any thoughts? Reviews also seemed to suggest there was a better battery meter in this model but I haven't seen it, 20% charge remaining still seems to mean run for a recarger, not you have 20% of the usage time you would get from a full charge left.
I think there is a software issue that causes something to start draining power at a crazy rate non-stop. I turned on the percentage battery indicator on my 3gs and one day I noticed it was running kind of hot and I looked at the indicator and saw the battery % had gotten crazy low really fast so I just set the phone down and watched.
I was losing like 1% every minute while running nothing other than the OS itself. WTF? That's like under 2 hour battery life while doing NOTHING but staring at the home screen -- you're supposed to be able to watch video for 6-7 hours, right?
So I powered my phone off completely, then let it reboot. Whatever it was, it went away. After that it ran smooth, no extra heat, battery indicator stayed at the same percent as I stared at homescreen for 5+ minutes and it was perfectly fine for the rest of the day. No clue what happened there, but something was draining power non-stop until I rebooted the thing. I assume it wasn't the processor, because it wasn't locked up -- so perhaps it was a modem issue.
It's quite possible that had I not noticed this issue and rebooted my phone I might have ended up with a pink one as well.
If this is what happens when Steve Jobs is absent from Apple for 6 months, I shudder to think what will happen when he's permanently gone. As arrogant and bone-headed as Apple can seem sometimes, there's no doubt it's lead extremely well.
Perhaps the heat thing is a new app, for use in colder climates,... - ihotwaterbottle ?
"What's best, thinking you're paranoid or knowing you should be?"
Apple obviously designed the iPhone 3GS to be cooled by pure Apple fanboyism. People having problems obviously aren't the true believers.
iPhone owner checklist:
* Are you making sure to bring up your iPhone in EVERY single conversation no matter how irrelevant it is to what you are talking about?
* Are you making sure you are holding your iPhone in the most BLATANTLY OBVIOUS way possible in all public places?
* Are you flaming each and every single post on the Net that dares to criticize the iPhone?
* Are you making good use of your mod points on Net messageboards and BURY the Apple unbelievers?
Making sure you are doing your part should keep your precious iPhone perfectly safe and as pristine as the glorious moment you saw Steve Jobs on stage cradle it in his hands.
The iphone just isn't cool anymore.
Still, I've yet to find a phone that doesn't do this. My Palm Centro gets quite hot when using the antenna for any extended period of time (streaming a video or something). Every now and then it gets so hot I have to pull the battery out to wait for it to cool down.
Maybe the pink glow is a creative way to make the best out of an unavoidable problem? :)
If you need to cook your food in the wilderness or light a campfire, there's an app for that...
It is just that all testing is done by a team of Eskimos. iNuit to be precise.
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
Keeps your hands warm in the winter.
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
The iPhone was supposed to be used by cool people who can easily take the heat.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
She can have a pink iPhone and say "That's Hot" and not look like a douchebag.
Learn About Outsourcing. http://www.pioutsource.com
iKnew that there iS someTiNg gay iN iPhone!
Sounds like a fairly straight forward case of there being a few dodgy units out there to me - not exactly the biggest surprise when you consider the number of units produced and the short development/testing cycles people have to get new gadgets out these days. Apple aren't the only ones this sort of thing has happened to and they certainly won't be the last.
Watching all the fanbois go up in flames (bah-dum-tish) was however pure internet entertainment!
"nuh-huh didn't happen!"
"they are using it wrong"
"its normal!! laptops can browse the internet and gets hot - the iphone can browse the internet and gets hot. Same thing innit?"
"it's cos of the mega-fast hardware - it just shows how awesome it is"
"YOU'RE ALL JEALOUS!!"
As I expect there will be some of the same along here shortly I'll grab some popcorn :)
that the iPhone is reaching out to those good with colours which makes it the best thing ever!
I am about to file a bug report to a Symbian beta software because I busted it using amazing amounts of CPU if it changes the wireless network while other network it was connected is doing kinda OK with 30-40 percent levels.
It is more like Apple OS X scheme of things, access point groups. Issue comes from application since it has its own access points code. Doesn't use system's built in.
How could I figure the huge CPU load? Simple, battery went hot and died in hours. It is like old fashion way of figuring CPU load.
What I mean is don't eliminate CPU immediately, they are portable devices running portable CPU which was never designed for 24/7 full CPU load.
What we need is, some heroic blog hack the iPhone 3G, install standard UNIX tools (ps) and run ps -aux (or top) whenever it gets hot. I am NOT suggesting it to actual iPhone 3GS owners. You bought it, report bug to Apple using http://bugreporter.apple.com/ . Duplicate reports are always welcome at Apple, they work like ''vote''.
Wow, I'm not surprised at reading this. Obviously simple. The more apps you are running, the more CPU you require.. the more power you need. If the apps require power for wireless/GPS transmission to boot, well, a short battery life is to be expected. Same as any other cell phone with features like games, messaging, etc... When I leave Windows Messenger running idle on my cell phone, the battery life goes down to 3 hrs.. If I close it, I last a full day. Ironic, because that's the behavior for all battery powered devices. Which is why a battery miser is a great feature to have on laptops as it allows you to control the amount of power consumption, by regulating and adjusting the power requirement of various components. I wonder if an iPhone has that?
Apple does it again, beating other companies to it ... iPhone now even with built-in iMicrostove !
Why don't these people just put in a new battery?
You prefer homosex with niggers over deepdicking pussy??? Fag.
Are they sure they didn't get the George Foreman Grill Edition?
Http://suregottold.com
iPhones Glow Pink
From what I hear about Apple fanboys this will be seen as an advantage.
Then they can claim it has a built in heater.
Test your products both in cold climates and 40c+ climates. btw apple, black sucks, it absorbes heat in the sun shine.
Liberty freedom are no1, not dicks in suits.
just asking
Which moron tagged the article with this? How does that even apply here?
I encountered the same issue when I was working on a low-end 2G phone. The problem was related to the DSP coprocessor. The plastic case almost melted after overheating for a night during a test campain. The device seemed to work OK after that. The problem is that maybe some components were harmed and it could cause some random failures afterwards. I would definetely ask for a new device after such overheating.
when it becomes so hot, it becomes difficult/painful to hold by bare hand. it happens usually whenever i'am using 3G connection with a lot of open connections (i.e. my eBuddy account), or whenever needs reconnection (i.e. browsing on the road with connection changes between GPRS, EDGE and 3G --and no i'm not driving--). whenever this happens, the battery drains like monkey pee. the only solution to save the battery (avoid recharging) is to turn off the handphone immediately.
the shitty thing due this issue is sometimes i forgot to logout from eBuddy from the phone... I just put it on my trouser pocket and heat sometimes burn my testicles... damn, my sperm...
fvck b3ta!
forgot to add, imho, the culprit is the 3G chip!
fvck b3ta!
Never again have to eat cold food when on the go!!
you can use the new iPhone to even heat up meals!!
I've got a white 32GB iPhone 3GS, and no problems that severe. If I'm in extended use of the GPS/compass it does get warmer to the touch, as it will also do on lengthy phone calls (15 minutes plus or so). It also gets warmer when (surprise) playing games for an extended period. It hasn't gotten uncomfortably hot, nor has there been any discoloration so far.
As far as software issues, the only major one I've seen so far is that the Jawbone Prime headset I'd been using as my main headset has been having trouble with this phone - it disassociates sometimes and the button sequence to turn off the headset LED doesn't work anymore. My other headset (a Jabra 530) works fine so I've been using it.
Battery life has been pretty good so far - from my unscientific study it seems a little better than the 3G I had before that my wife now uses. Game playing drops it faster than voice or data, and web surfing does use more juice on 3G than on wifi.
There were a lot of BT and power management issues in the initial release of 2.0 last year. It took Apple a couple of releases over the first month or two to get things all the way right, and I suspect we'll have a couple of fast releases now as well.
The Apple trend with every new OS release (Mac or iPhone) is basically this:
- Limited public testing if any. Code freeze about a month before shipping.
- Initial bugfix release (.01) 2-4 weeks after the product shipped, with all the glaring bugs that they found after freeze addressed. This rarely has any problems found in initial public release addressed unless they're super-critical.
- About 2 months after release we get a .02 version that covers the main issues found after they got the product into public release. By this time the software is pretty solid - subsequent point releases during the product lifetime will add occasional minor features but mainly fix performance issues and/or security holes. Almost all the releases afterwards will be in the first 6-8 months when it's an iPhone OS - roughly 4 months before the next year's new OS version Apple will abandon the current one and concentrate on the announcements for the coming year.
So next February or so Apple will stop fixing 3.0 in preparation for 4.0 which will be announced around March and ship around June.
They basically do the same thing with the desktop OS - just the overall life cycle is longer. but the initial freeze/release/patch1/patch2 cycle applies there as well and on roughly the same timing.
So basically what I'm saying is that the problems that some 3GS users are having (but not me) are assuredly legit, and will likely be addressed in one of the first two bug-fix software releases for the phone. The first release will probably come in the next week or two and may address it - and within 1-2 months it will almost certainly be taken care of through power management. Not to mention that I'm sure my Bluetooth issue will be fixed as well. You get used to this. At least modern phones (iPhone, Android, Palm Pre) can and do now regularly get software updates to address issues.
I remember an era BI (before iPhone) where the carriers controlled software tightly, and the cell companies rarely or never released patches. There's no real good reason why Windows Mobile phones virtually never get OS updates for the installed base, or why the PalmOS Treos would take over a year to fix minor issues. Now that's properly in the hands of the vendors, where it belongs.
-- Josh Turiel
"2. Do not eat iPod Shuffle."
Too Hot to handle!.
One for the fanbois!
Apple is following Microsoft. Release without testing!
Someone clearly left their iBacon app running the background.
Brain surgery - it's not rocket science!
>> Except that you can't run multiple apps on the iPhone
What? Say this ain't so! $$$$$$hitload of money for a device which can not do multitasking? Fuck iphone then. I will stick to my more useful but not so cute devices.
Does it display ponies as well when it glows pink?
See the bright side of overheated iPhone, if you are hungry you can boil an egg and eat it :)
Until the skies turn blue...
Until the air of freedom strikes us...
Now bullies can play pink belly with other's iPhones!
I mean, isn't the GPS chip running all the time to give you cellular 9-1-1 and location based services?
It's not like OEM GPS units are an exotic technology either. You determine the thermal dissipation of the unit on the test bench just by firing it up. This is some kind of system behavior phenomenon.
If I had to pull an answer out of my donkey I'd guess that the initial cause of the overheating is plain old CPU wattage. Normally the CPU would run throttled down, but then when you do mapping and processing GPS data it's chugging away all the time doing trigonometry -- and mobile CPUs are probably not power optimized for continual floating point operations. And then some kind of thermal runaway gets triggered in some component -- possibly the backliight or battery.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
ripening process for a CRapple ..... its not ripe till its red....
Just let them run till they turn red... Then they will be good to go.....
cue crapple fanbois....4...3...2....1.
1311393600 - Back to Black
Download the iPhone Configuration Utility, connect the iPhone and read the log.
My wife's 3GS was constantly running some process in the background and added 3 log entries every second. The battery drained quickly. We did an OS restore without restoring the backup and it gets great battery life now.
A little troubleshooting goes a long way.
I sit in awe seeing commercials advertising "Copy and Paste" as if it were some ground breaking new technology wonder if the less educated users have any clue at all.
I think it has become accepted that it doesn't seem to matter what 3rd world country they buy from, these hungry, over-worked, under-paid people can't seem to build a battery that doesn't eventually turn into an explosive. So with that in mind, being able to change the battery in the event of need should be fundamental especially in the most expensive of devices. It has made sense for users to be able to change their batteries, but now is it starting to make sense for Apple? How many of their phones need this kind of problem before it makes more sense to simply hand the user a new battery to change rather than trading iPhones while repairs are made.
I've got to say, that portable Apple gear, as cool as it may be, cannot be used in places where it is mission critical. They don't have the kind of warranty service and support that I have come to expect from technology vendors and frankly, I was shocked when I learned this of Apple the hard way in a world where everyone else offers better service and support.
A lot of modern smartphones suffer these exact problems because of the push for more and more features. Basically, a feature add will add power draw, and will also tend to add CPU usage as the applications to run these new features crank up the utilization.
I don't have an iPhone... I have too much invested in the Windows Mobile platform dating back almost a decade to really migrate at this point (plus, I write some of my own little applets and upload to my phone all the time... can't do that with the iPhone without jailbreaking). However, I DO currently have an HTC Touch Pro, my previous device being an HTC Tilt. The majority of the time, the phone is excellent; it runs cool, it does exactly what I want when I want and doesn't have too many horribly nefarious bugs, though much of that probably has to do with the custom ROM I flashed to it. But if I start activating devices such as GPS, WiFi and other features like that it sometimes shocks me how hot the phone will get. Particularly if I'm using, say Google Maps as a GPS application.
Google Maps will turn on my GPS antenna, and then will start pulling data using my 3G connection (I have traffic turned on, too). Both of these add significant power draw and heat generation, and the GM app itself will tend to crank up the CPU. Because of the draw, and because most of the time I only use these functions together in the car I plug my phone into my car charger. But you know what? Then the screen stays on... more heat. Literally, my phone can get to the point where I'd be really uncomfortable holding that thing up to my ear... thank for Bluetooth headsets! Even if I skip Google Maps and use TomTom Mobile, it forces the screen to stay on so again the battery life goes into the toilet and I end up with a rather nice hand warmer on cold days.
Does it concern me? A little. I get concerned that this heat is going to shorten the life of my device significantly, but on the flip side I'm enough of a phone geek I tend to trade out my phones every couple of years anyway to get the "latest and greatest". Also, the Touch Pro has not shown any significant signs of being a problem child... it all works.
The Touch Pro has been pretty well engineered by HTC; they design a LOT of handsets for a lot of different markets. As a result, their experience in engineering these kind of form factors is really good. Their smartphone devices will dissipate heat quite well, and be none the worse for wear. My old Tilt still works as well as the day I bought it ~3 or 4 years ago, except that it's been dropped quite a number of times. Apple's problem is that they really don't have that experience, and as such they DO make mistakes with heat dissipation and things like that in a small form factor like the iPhone. They've done it before; their focus on aesthetics often takes over from the engineering portion... and while I know Apple has some phenomenal engineers, there's no replacement for experience. I think the engineering margins they built into the 3GS were just too tight for such a large CPU bump and general hardware bump. Everyone loves the fact that Apple used the same case (almost) for the 3GS... which is great for all those dock-equipped things that were designed for the 3G... but when you make such a significant jump from the old architecture to the new, something has to give if the margins for error were not factored correctly.
I suspect that Apple will provide a fix soon that will underclock the Cortex A8 core in the 3GS to eliminate some of that heat. Thankfully that's an easy solution until the hardware is reengineered a little. It should be possible to do that by maybe 10% and the average user will never notice the difference. If they're truly running it at 600Mhz, then the A8 provides a nice little mechanism to drop back to 500Mhz, or further. If they just provide a software limit so that the CPU doesn't crank up to a higher rate during high utilization, then it should take care of the problem. Yes, I have a Beagleboard which runs almost the same hardware (thou
I haven't had a chance to try the new iPhones, but I remember my black Motorola flip phone from about 8 or so years ago doing exactly that. Calling from the car and thinking it was almost too hot to hold to my head. Now, that was also 8 years ago, so you'd think they'd be better, but it's not like it's the first phone to scald your face off.
I will shred my adversaries. Pull their eyes out just enough to turn them towards their mewing, mutilated faces. Illyria
is why I am a PC. :)
Just goes to show you shouldn't be the first to buy any new gadget.
Early adopters always get burnt in some way. It is just more literal in this case.
Nice headline Eds. Did you read TFA? (Sorry, that was a rhetorical question.)
Or did you bother to consider how hot the casing would have to be to GLOW pink? (Around 538C, if the case was steel.)
"Later, the owner discovered that the white backing on the device had turned pink-toned near the spot where the battery is stored, the report said."
Nothing warms the hearth of true Apple fanboy, as does new [overheating] iPhone.
I have an iphone 3G and the thing gets incredibly warm if I am using 3G for more than a few minutes. I've got one of those Agent 18 plastic cases on it and it gets so hot through the case that it makes my hand sweaty. And no, its not all that pr0n making it so hot, it even does it when I'm on your mom's facebook site =oP
How short our collective geek memories are. This same phenomenon occurred last year when Apple released 2.0.
;-)
Around August of '08 there was an outcry of users complaining about diminished battery life + hot iPhones. Both on the then-new 3G, and on the original. I had this problem with my iPhone 2G (the original) after installing iPhone 2.0. My battery life went from lasting several days to barely making it through one, with the phone getting quite warm if I used it for more than a few minutes straight. It would even stay warmer than ambient when I wasn't using it. A sure sign that *something* was awry. In September of '08, Apple released 2.1 and that completely solved the problem for me and many other users. Battery life + heat levels returned to pre-2.0 levels. Problem solved.
So it's entirely possible that this is some sort of software/power management issue. And if that's the case, Apple will (ok, should) be able to fix it. And if that *is* the case, then Apple really needs to take another look at their iPhone power management coding/testing procedures.
Well, what can I say? The iPhone is one smokin' hot gadget out there!
Sounds like a feature to me, save me $200 for getting it painted: http://www.colorwarepc.com/p-182-iphone-3gs.aspx
Curious about Storage and Virtualization? Check out
It's just a test run of their soon-to-be-released iSpaceheater app.
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
iFan: Keeping the blistering speed of the 3GS from giving you blisters! Also provides emergency cooling in those tough Iraqi deserts where iPhones are being deployed. Comes with free 'Fanspeed control app'
If your phone gets so hot that it is cooled by radiation rather than convection, you will soon learn what "burns a hole in your pocket" means. Electronics are cooled by conduction and convection, and for this to be efficient the surface needs to be conductive to get the surface temperature as close to the interior as possible, and ideally with a microstructure to increase the surface area to improve convection. The color is irrelevant at room temperatures.
From scarped cliff or quarried stone she cries "A thousand types are gone, I care for nothing, no not one."
The battery life on my new 3G S has been terrible--worse than my experience with the first generation device, where I had to replace the phone three times before I got one that worked properly.
I recently went into the Apple Store at the Burlington Mall, Burlington, MA, to see the Genius Bar about this battery problem. I was (and wasn't) surprised to have them offload the problem to me, how I was pushing/pulling data. They made a quick adjustment and told me to "come back if you have more problems". Though, intuitively, I wonder if this is what they're instructed to do.
The FAQ on apple.com even suggests that you just turn off 3G and this-and-that. What would be the point of having the phone if you have to turn off all the useful features?
I say that because I already experimented with different settings and did not see any improved battery life. I explained this very clearly.
What's even more concerning is when I made the initial call to Apple Support about the issue, the representative said that the battery performance was not covered under any warranty and that, even though I just bought the darned thing, I'd have to pay 79.00 to have it sent in and repaired, during which time I would be without a phone.
Ummm.... NO.
I made it very clear I would get an attorney and make them replace it. I was then placed on hold 2 different times, after which I was passed to a different representative who was more friendly and scheduled a Genius Bar appointment (per the above).
In summary: be prepared to invest extra time with this device if you're having any issues with the iPhone.
Caveat Emptor.
iPhone = Made in China = BSD port of Green Dam = hot handset = iPhwned
The Iphones are meant to be water cooled. You are supposed use them underwater only.
The early blame seems to fall on games and GPS, resource-intensive applications that are pumping up the battery until it gets too hot to handle and eventually overheats.
What a horrible choice of words. "Pumping up" the battery? That would seem to indicate charging the battery. "Large battery drain" or "heavy power consumption", something that indicates battery use instead of charging would have made a lot more sense. Since when does "some random blogger" become an expert?
Another gem: One commenter shared this tale: "I had my iPhone under my pillow playing music through the head phones for a nap; I awoke with a sharp pain on my left arm under the pillow. I had been burned decently from the iPhone getting so hot. The phone seems to function fine though."
Try sticking a running notebook PC under your pillow and laying on it. It'll probably melt.
Coding with assembly is like playing with Legos. Coding an application in assembly is like building a car with Legos.
My iPhone 3G recently started overheating and causes the screen to go white. It's happened twice now and just after I upgraded to 3.0.
Always when I'm using GPS. Sounds like a more general problem then just on the new 3GS.
I had the first iPhone and it would overheat on occasion, but I couldn't make it do it consistently. I could be on the phone walking the dog for 15 minutes and it would be fine. But then I could be on the phone with a friend for 5 minutes and it would be too hot to hold against my ear. Data never seemed to make it heat up much, though playing music in my car would warm it up, but only sometimes.
The new 3G S hasn't had any heating issues, but I'm not sure I've spent enough time talking on it to say mine doesn't have a problem.
iPhone is actually running Objective C v2, which has Garbage collection.
I develop for the iPhone. It does not support GC (because it's a constrained device and they didn't wan the overhead). GC is supported on the Mac.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
I started a story about my iPhone 3GS experience Monday night after experiencing what I termed the "3GS Sleep (switch) Disorder".
The short version is that I purchased my first iPhone...a black 16GB 3GS last Saturday...from the local Apple Store. By Sunday, I was convinced I had a problem and opened a case with Apple on Monday. The AppleCare tech scheduled a Genius appointment at the local store for Thursday, 7/2. The phone could still make and receive calls at that point.
Yesterday morning (Tuesday, 6/30) the phone was toast...the screen was strobing between the Lock screen and the Power Off screen. The sleep switch no longer worked at all.
I called the local Apple store, explained the situation, cited the case number, was told to come in and get on STANDBY for a Genius. It took a little over an hour...mostly wait time...and I ended up with a new iPhone from the 5 they had in stock. Neither the original unit nor the new one have exhibited any heating issues, and I pretty much leave everything on as it's new and I can't put the damn thing down!
So, I may be OK. I will mention that several folks on the Apple Forums described the same issue I had. The AppleCare tech made a mention of "cracked circuit boards" but did not elaborate. The local Genius took the unit apart to check the ribbon cable to the sleep switch and found no visible cracks or damage to the phone. The phone would NOT complete a Restore,,,it hung during the Firmware install/verify. That's when the Genius said "I've lost faith in this phone...let's get you a new one."
Overall, I love the phone and the software. And, I can't be unhappy with Apple's response; I have a functioning unit that so far, seems trouble free.
My 2 cents, plus tip.
I am my own gestalt.
The iPhone is (rather questionably imho) written in Objective-C, which uses manual memory management and thus lets you do double frees, buffer overruns
If you actually knew much about objective-C you'd know that's false.
Memory management is based an retain/release model, which removes you from most of the dangers of C memory management because you are working with a higher level abstraction.
The equivalent of a "double free" is over releasing an object, which means you send a message to a dead object and the program simply crashes. There's basically no way to corrupt the heap in Objective-C programming, because you are never doing the kinds of things that lead to that. Even in normal C code what you postulate is insanely unlikely, as heap corruption leads to core dumps, not infinite loops. I've done a lot of Java work too and basically the memory management dangers are very similar, the biggest problem you will have is creating a situation where you are not allowing memory to free properly when you think it shoud (which again simply does not lead to infinite loops).
What I suspect happens is that there's a subtle memory error in a part of iPhone 3.0 which causes some background process to start spinning inside malloc.
Far more likely is that some interaction with some of the new chips (say a new GPS chip with compass) that leads to it constantly consuming power when the phone thinks it's powered down. I have not seen this issue myself with a heavy day using maps recently, but it could be in combination with something else.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
No the only thing apple should be ashamed of is poor battery design and over clocking the processor to make idiots happy.
The battery design is actually pretty good, even in heavy use I can get well over a day easy - if I'm not doing much it wlll last for a few. Good for a smartphone.
As for overclocking many others have pointed out they actually underclock the processor. So I look forward to your post where you say how they should be so proud of reducing consumption since you thought they should be ashamed of overclocking.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
So if you turn out the lights, all devices will radiate heat equally well?
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
...as in the sound it makes when it sears to your earlobe ;)
Comment removed based on user account deletion
I use Apple, like Apple and also like reading computer history.
At one point, Apple had 50% share of personal computer market. They basically owned Education market and Quicktime at one point of history was "Flash" of today.
What happened? Apple made some amazingly stupid mistakes, they created some kind of "phobia" which still exists today. When people suggested Apple to stop doing it, "fans" 10x size of them made them regret it.
I am also a Nokia user and I also had the good luck (!) of helping a Blackberry owner. If Apple didn`t do unbelievable things like "No multi tasking on a UNIX handheld", "no MMS" . "no J2ME", iPhone had way more, unimaginable share on smart phone market. In fact, it could even cause other vendors do unimaginable things like moving to Linux+Qt as last chance of market share or laying off entire divisions.
I just can`t stand to 3-4 mistakes which are huge and they are missing the second chance to dominate.
My normal 3G gets quite hot (not unhandlably, but enough to be uncomfortable) when using GPS. If the 3GS is worse, it could easily be to hot to hold.
My advice would be to turn off the battery percentage as I would not be surprised if it is buggy somehow and causing a battery drain by running in the background. Not only that, but turning it off would relieve all of you OCD types from obsessing over the numbers rather than looking at actual use of the device.
I think that the number of unit is relatively low but my fellow apple aficionados tend to be a bunch of whiny cry babies so you end up seeing the same damn people complaining all over the internet causing it to seem more widespread than it actually is.
I submit for your perusal the Apple product cycle: http://www.misterbg.org/AppleProductCycle/
I kind of feel left out of all this fun give than I have yet to have a problem with my iPhone but I did notice that turning on the battery percentage does tend to drain my battery faster so I'm going to turn it off for now until 3.1 comes out. Hopefully, bugs related to battery consumption will be fixed with a new release.
Jesus was a compassionate social conservative who called individuals to sin no more.
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I for one welcome our IPhone overlords, it's obvious the IPhones are becoming self aware.
The poster assumes that the reader is familiar with the size of a typical .25 watt resistor... and for the people who will actually read his (somewhat technical) post, he's probably right.
Nowhere else is technical knowledge brought together with goatse and GNAA trolls so seamlessly.
Love it!
"Trolls they were, but filled with the evil will of their master: a fell race..." -- J.R.R. Tolkien on Olog-hai
(British Accent narrating) - Right. Ok. Today we'll be testing the new iPhone's durability. - ...In Fire! (Pulls out flamethrower, iPhone obviously melting, then it explodes)
(British guy drops iPhone into a concrete enclosure)
- Grenades! (Drops a grenade in with it)
(Scenes begin to switch faster, showing the iPhone blowing up over and over in each scenario)
- Lasers!
- Sharks!
- Sports!
- Cars!
- Molten Lava!
- (Then cuts to a scene where someone is just talking on the phone or using an app - a boring 5 seconds) Consumers!
- Judges show their ratings: 10, 8, 9, 8, 1.2 (Germany)
From the iPhone owners manual: "The pink color is normal. Pink indicates iPhone is done cooking. Allow iPhone to cool, then apply cocktail sauce and enjoy."
Even the Powerbook G4 back then used their casings to dissipate heat, so what's the news?
It is designed to be watercooled(Drop it in a bucket of water)
My old iPhone started heating a few days ago, when two events took place
- summer began
- I switched from 2.0 to 3.0
So it's a software and/or environment problem. Let's wait for winter to be sure.
Apple remains the master of news management for different vital organ transplants, but this time it seems that there are simply too many stories out there for even Apple to shut them all down in their customary, efficient, and 1984-style manner.
Don't worry everyone, they will design and bring a new one out by christmas so everyone can bin their current iPhone and rush out to buy the new one! I wonder what wonderful features will be on the next one? Tea making facilities maybe?
Many people experienced similar issues when they were using Netshare many months ago on iPhone OS 2.0 while plugged in. They noticed that the iphone 3G would get really hot and the battery would still drain even if it was plugged into a power source.
To prevent overheating, unplug the device when you are using it and stop using it when you have to recharge the device again. Not only will it not overheat but the battery life will not deteriorate as quickly.
Jesus was a compassionate social conservative who called individuals to sin no more.
A few years back when the macbook pro (core duo) came out, people complained that the bottom got (and still does) get too hot to use it when it's on your lap. We complained "it's a laptop, you should be able to use it on your lap!" And Apple's response was along the lines of, "you should be using it on a desk or table..."
I'm waiting for apple to come back to this and say, "Yeah it's a phone, but you shouldn't be holding it up to your head, you should be using a bluetooth headset or speakerphone."
You are saying a white aluminum block will radiate heat slower than black styrofoam?
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley