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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.'"
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.
Try reading this post on CNET I've not read it, but it seems to be relevant.
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When I truck a lot of traffic over 3G to the G1 I also seem to have some overheating problems, albeit not as severe as those being discussed above. Notably trying to watch TV in beebplayer seems to cause overheating which may or may not be why the video often halts for me in that application. That might tally with those proclaiming general traffic as being a problem too. PS. No idea why you've been modded off topic, since a comparison of similar issues with other phones seems highly relevant to me. Had I mod points I'd have corrected that.
btw apple, black sucks, it absorbes heat in the sun shine.
How often do you leave your phone out in direct sunlight? And black radiates heat better, so in the shade it will cool down faster.
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."
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.
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