Overheating iPhone 4

Overheating iPhone 4

MrFSS

New Member
Thread Starter
Joined
Apr 19, 2014
Messages
9
Reaction score
0
Location
Central Kentucky
iPhone 4 - 14 months old, worked well up until about 2 weeks ago. All of a sudden it heats up when I charge it and it won't hold the charge but for about 14-16 hours even when I don't talk or otherwise use it. I use to be able to go 2-3 days between charges (I don't talk much on it). And when I do talk on it it heats up while that is going on.

I took it to an Apple store yesterday. They said it is out of warranty and they would replace it for $149.00. The young tech lady did check the battery and said it was fine.

Is there anything else I should be looking at for this type problem? Or, should I consider the $149.00 as my only solution?

Will the phone suffer more if I just let it get hot when it charges?

Interesting to me that this problem started so quickly and there didn't seem to be anything that happened to cause it. Never has been wet or in or around water/moisture.

Thanks!!
 
Try downloading this app my friend... The cause maybe cause of cache... This app might help... If not there is another i will tell you if this doesn't work!

https://itunes.apple.com/pk/app/checker-memory-disk-space/id666161205?mt=8


Sent from my iPhone 5 using Tapatalk. . .

Thanks - I have a memory app that frees up quite a lot of space. I have a lot of apps on the phone I don't use, but they were automatically installed when I installed them on my iPad. I've been afraid that if I remove them from the phone it will cause them to be removed from the iPad.
 
Thanks - I have a memory app that frees up quite a lot of space. I have a lot of apps on the phone I don't use, but they were automatically installed when I installed them on my iPad. I've been afraid that if I remove them from the phone it will cause them to be removed from the iPad.

Memory apps don't do anything for the iPhone but waste battery.

And removing an app from your iPhone does not remove it from your iPad. I have my devices setup the same way and I delete things all the time with no issues.
 
Perhaps you downloaded a app that saved a lot of cache, for example soundcloud downloader, the app doesn't save songs just cache which overheats iPhone...


Sent from my iPhone 5 using Tapatalk. . .
 
Perhaps you downloaded a app that saved a lot of cache, for example soundcloud downloader, the app doesn't save songs just cache which overheats iPhone...


Sent from my iPhone 5 using Tapatalk. . .

Sorry, that statement is misleading at best. Because if that was true Google Play Music , Amazon Music and Apple Music, which all use caching to play music, would all overheat the iPhone and you would see millions of complaints on forums every where. Guess what, there aren't that many people complaining. There's a reason why.

Lets chat about what truly overheats an iPhone. And what's really funny is, the list is actually very small. Ready?

1) Battery usage.


Yep. That's it. Now while some of you might think I am being a smart *bleep*, please take the time to read why I'm typing this up. It does make a lot of sense once you look at the whole picture.

First lets all remember one fact. The iPhone is a one piece deign. That means every single component, that makes up the iPhone, is encased in a housing that you hold. So lets list the top 5 battery users in an iPhone.

1) Screen
2) Cellular Radio
3) GPU
4) CPU
5) WiFi

Does the screen generate a lot of heat? Not really. In fact if you took the battery, removed it from the case and and turned the brightness to 100% the iPhone would stay cool to the touch because it would dissipate the heat into the air very quickly. Now the battery on the other hand would be getting warm. But because it is outside the case, it to would dissipate its heat pretty well as well. But put the two in the same housing. Now you have heat soaking occurring.

See where this is going? Cellular Radio, GPU, CPU and WiFi all start to add up when it comes to heat soaking with the battery being right next to all of these components. Now, why doesn't a caching MP3 player overheat an iPhone?

Well first it sends the whole song to the iPhone while it is playing it. That causes the Cellular Radio (or WiFi) and CPU to use battery which generate heat in all three. But that download only last for 10 to 30 seconds. The average song is 3 minutes and 30 seconds. So for 3 minutes the Cellular Radio is in standby mode. It's no longer draining the battery and generating heat. The screen is probably off. Another savings on draining the battery which as we know means a savings on heat. So that leaves reading the on board memory for the music, which generates almost no heat as well as the CPU to decode the MP3 and then sending the result to the speaker/headphones/bluetooth. Those last three items aren't big heat generators either.

So is it possible for "soundcloud downloader" to overheat the iPhone? Yes. No doubt in my mind. But odds are the screen is on and set at 50% or brighter. The application is downloading multiple songs simultaneously, playing one back and the app is using the cellular radio the entire time. Well after 20 minutes that a lot of heat soaking with no ability to cool down. Guess what, play a 3D game on the iPhone for 20 minutes solid and it does the same exact thing save for only the CPU/GPU and screen are in use.

With that all in mind, now you see why I said the original statement is misleading. The app isn't the issue nor is the caching. But if you reach a very specific set of circumstances, then maybe it could be an issue.
 
Last edited:
I don't play any music on my phone. I basically use it to talk (make and receive calls) and maybe a few times a week check email or FB. I usually only do those things when I have a wi-fi connection.

I have removed about 10-12 apps I never use and it seems to help a bit with how long the battery lasts. But the process of charging and talking on the phone still cause it to heat up quite a bit. I had about a 20 minute call yesterday and by the time that was over I could hardly hold the phone it was so hot.

I did install the app that was mentioned earlier in this thread but can't see that it has made any difference.

Thanks!!
 
And here is the issue. It won't matter if you remove every app from the phone.

But the process of charging and talking on the phone still cause it to heat up quite a bit.

An educated guess would be that you have two issues occurring at once.

1) Your battery is coming up on or has already reached 350 deep cycle charges.

2) You're in a very weak area for cellular service. Rough guess, you are probably dealing with a -92 to -100 dBm signal.

Those two conditions would overheat any 3G based iPhone, regardless of the apps installed. Replacing the battery would allow you to hold a larger charge and for a longer period so you wouldn't have to talk on the phone while its charging. Also if the phone is in a case, that will make the issue even worse.
 
Memory apps don't do anything for the iPhone but waste battery. And removing an app from your iPhone does not remove it from your iPad. I have my devices setup the same way and I delete things all the time with no issues.

I'd have to agree. Memory apps are garbage and do nothing. Tried about 5 of these for the heck of it when they went free for a day or so.

I close all my apps, run the memory app that is supposed to clear the memory. With no apps running and all shut down, I run these memory apps and they say I need to clean the memory. So I do. Then run the same memory app 10 seconds later and it reports I need to clean my memory again. Total BS.

The iOS firmware in all our iPhones deal with the memory just fine by itself. NO need for apps that claim to clean memory. If your iPhone needs more memory for a certain app than is currently available, it will shut down other background apps to make memory room available for the current app your trying to run.

iOS 8 is supposed to have a way to monitor what apps are using how much of your battery. If you haven't found out what's causing your battery problem, your going to have to wait for iOS 8.
 
Sadly the OP has an iPhone 4, which won't be getting iOS 8 if memory serves.
 
Just an FYI - all of a sudden the charge holds as if it were a new battery, it doesn't heat up when charging or while I'm talking on it. I didn't do anything to it. It just started working the way it is supposed to work for no apparent reason. Strange!
 
Beat they added new cellular tower capacity near you. In fact check your dots to see if you are getting one or two more than before.
 
Bet they added new cellular tower capacity near you. In fact check your dots to see if you are getting one or two more than before.

Nope - l live pretty close to a tower. Had a full set before and still do now. That hasn't changed.
 

Latest posts

Back
Top