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IPhone 3G Handsets Overheat, Turn Brown

wired.com — The iPhone 3G may, at least for some users, have an additional, undocumented feature: It can be used to toast bread.

Who dugg this? Made popular Jul 1, 2009

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  • chill613, on 07/01/2009, -4/+44the iBacon app becomes obsolete
  • ju66l3r, on 07/01/2009, -2/+26Not only does my 3G get hot, but when it heats up like that, the audio cuts in and out intermittently. If I try to make a phone call it will disable the speaker AND microphone for about 15s and then they'll be on for 5 seconds and back off again...until I restart the phone or chill it down to a normal temperature again.
  • malignatius, on 07/01/2009, -0/+19So...Apple has invented a phone that changes color when it becomes warm? Pretty awesome!
  • seanoneil14, on 06/30/2009, -3/+15ah they have a typo in the first sentence of their article. and the title of this submission. fantastic.
  • coopa, on 07/01/2009, -2/+1121 million, not 'hundreds of millions'.

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iphone

  • gubatron2, on 07/01/2009, -2/+11iToast.
  • TDDebug, on 07/01/2009, -1/+10That's what I call good quality!
  • xGORDOx, on 07/01/2009, -0/+8Funny. When the Palm Pre had "issues" of getting really hot, the iPhanboys were out in full force to condemn the device, yet here we are with the iPhone having the exact same problem and it's a "minor issue".

    Can't have it both ways.

    It's a smart phone, which means its a computer running on a cell phone battery, it's gonna have heat issues. It's kind of why computers have fans.

  • inactive, on 07/01/2009, -0/+7I recently got a Google Android HTC Dream phone and it gets fairly hot when I am charging, listening to mp3 and playing a game with it all at the same time.
  • CanadaMan87, on 07/01/2009, -1/+8I've encountered this before - when I used a tethering program on my jailbroken iPhone 3G (OS 2.1) it became very hot.
  • inactive, on 07/01/2009, -0/+7yup. i have one and I must say for fanboys claiming mac products are premium they sure seem to have a lot of overheating issues and casing problems. Especially with the 3GS, a third generation not addressing issues that should have been cleared up by now.
  • MacParrot, on 07/01/2009, -0/+7A waffle iron?
  • dasunst3r, on 07/01/2009, -0/+6Gosh, what can I say? iPhones are the hottest gadget in town! (ducks rotten tomatoes)
  • ThatEvilGuy, on 07/01/2009, -0/+5That's a feature.
  • Charlotte_Web, on 07/01/2009, -0/+5After years of "brown Zune envy," now we have our brown iPhone!
  • mrBitch, on 07/01/2009, -0/+5O o
    /¯____________________________ ______________
    | BLAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA AAAAAAARGH!!!
    \_¯¯¯
  • AllHereTruth, on 06/29/2009, -3/+8They are talking about the 3GS in this article. Note the title and references to 'the new iphone'
  • gruvsf, on 06/29/2009, -3/+8I've also noticed this on my 3G device, so already looking forward towards 3.1 to address the heat and battery drain issues
  • MooseOfReason, on 07/01/2009, -2/+6http://www.wired.com/images_blogs/gadgetlab/2009/0 ...

    Anything else I can get you, Mr. Oblivious?
  • Quizboy, on 07/01/2009, -3/+7If your iphone/ipod touch is overheating try turning off push notification. My battery life went from 10 hours of listening to music to just 2 after the 3.0 update, but now it's back to normal after i turned off push notification.
  • rossisdead, on 07/01/2009, -0/+3I knew Hypercolor would come back!
  • inactive, on 07/01/2009, -1/+4It's MADE IN CHINA. What did you expect?
  • mrBitch, on 07/01/2009, -0/+3My iPhone's now a light pink! Thanks Steve!
  • waydee, on 07/01/2009, -6/+9Apple struggling to make a device that works as well as those of its competitors - big surprise. For all the talk of "quality" hardware there seems to be endless reports to the contrary.
  • etx313, on 07/01/2009, -0/+3Atari 800xl
  • tdskate, on 07/01/2009, -1/+3I'm still unclear on wether it's 3G or 3GS... WHICH is it ?!
  • puter, on 07/01/2009, -0/+2not true, push operates based upon carrier signals from the cell company through apple. you don't "constantly query"

    In fact, if you receive few emails, push is more battery efficient than using fetch because you will only retrieve emails when there are actually new emails.

    the OP probably receives a lot of emails and as a result push is downloading each one individually as soon as it comes in rather than getting them in one batch.

    Personally, I filter the majority of my emails on server side so that push only grabs the important ones addressed directly to me. Then the two imap accounts I commonly use are set to fetch every hour. The imap accounts I don't usually use are set to manual. I get sufficient battery life.
  • lacreme, on 07/01/2009, -7/+9This happened to my 3g last summer, apple replaced it with a new one with no hassle and I never had the problem again.
  • inactive, on 07/01/2009, -0/+2I see what you did there!

    :)
  • SPNKrPunk, on 07/01/2009, -1/+3As I understand, Push needs to constantly query Apple's push server for updates to work properly. I don't really see how that can be improved, outside of disabling Push notifications.

    Honestly, I'll take a device that's 1/4" thicker than the previous model if it means I get better battery life.

    Or a replaceable battery, but apparently that's verboten in Apple's world.
  • etx313, on 07/01/2009, -1/+3Yes, I think Nokia, RIM, HTC, Palm are better.
  • MiDri, on 07/01/2009, -0/+1I've found that the way the iphone handles push (for both email and apps) is horrible. It does cause a HUGE battery life drop as well as makes the device all around hotter.

    In theory push works, but apple's implementation sucks.
  • S1ngular1ty1, on 07/02/2009, -0/+1It is not related to GPS. A GPS receiver does only that, receives. It doesn't transmit anything. The only way a phone could get hot because of GPS is if an app is constantly running that is using GPS which would cause the main processor to get hot, not the GPS chip.
  • mrBitch, on 07/04/2009, -0/+1@ IDBash, RE: " .. Next time think before you speak fanboy."


    Definition of a fanboy :
    "someone who bought a Mac / iPhone / iPod before you did."
  • S1ngular1ty1, on 07/02/2009, -0/+1It is a totally different processor, not an overclocked version of the previous processor. It uses small fab technology and actually consumes less power.
  • pirateseaborne, on 07/01/2009, -1/+2right on! lol
  • tsmallm, on 07/01/2009, -0/+1name a computer that isn't made in china.
  • sorepheet, on 07/14/2009, -0/+1You're welcome.
  • inactive, on 07/01/2009, -0/+1yeah i tether mine in the car and it becomes SO hot with PDAnet i need the AC blowing on it. It still gets too hot and crashes.
  • IDBash, on 07/02/2009, -0/+1Yep.. called User Burn... been a Apple favorite for a long time. They just decided to go a bit more literal this time... :D
  • Mascots, on 07/01/2009, -0/+1Puter is correct, push technology is not a standard method of constantly checking and querying a server.
    Push allows you to keep a low-line open signal that is a persistent connected to apple's servers. This saves battery life mainly because it is more costly to open a connection, query, retrieve then close.
    It's ideally the same method you would use to receive a text message or phone call notice since the phone is always in a connected state.

    I wouldn't understand how push is related to the heating, though. Apple's push method does not retrieve data unless it is needed (like an aim popup). All it does is pull what the notification is for and what is needed to show. When the application launches, it then uses a pull method to retrieve the data.
  • Charlotte_Web, on 07/01/2009, -0/+1I'm sorry, but turning off push notifications in order to keep the battery from overheating is not acceptable. Reducing push updates to an hour is not acceptable.

    I expect the unit to work as promised, without it getting hot enough to cook the flesh on my hand.

    That being said, my 3GS gets warm, but I haven't noticed an overheating problem. Hopefully, the problem is isolated to a small percentage of units.
  • tsmallm, on 07/01/2009, -0/+1the phone doesn't look like it turned brown to me although I can't really tell because is looks like the photo was taken with a ***** camera phone. wtf?
  • MacParrot, on 07/01/2009, -0/+1You can also set how often you want it to push. Unless you're absolutely in need of constant updates, set it to an hour.
  • Mascots, on 07/01/2009, -0/+1Of course it is going to get warm, mine does too. High processing will always generate heat and that heat has to go somewhere.
  • S1ngular1ty1, on 07/02/2009, -0/+1Infrared thermometers are not very useful to get absolute temperatures unless you know what you are doing. You have to know the emissivity of the surface you are measuring and enter it into the thermometer to get accurate measurements. A surface's emissivity isn't a really easy number to determine. If you don't know this number you can get very wrong temperatures from one of these devices.
  • tsmallm, on 07/02/2009, -0/+1Atari 800xl is made in hong kong.......which is part of china. I think it is labeled as a self governing peoples republic of china.
  • IDBash, on 07/02/2009, -0/+1Not that useful....
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