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What Happens When Your iPhone Gets Really Hot?

What happens when your iPhone gets too hot - This Screen Pops up Last Saturday was a very hot day in Silicon Valley.  It's the beginning of summer and it hit 87 degrees outside right before lunch. We're having a heat wave!

After a lunch meeting, I jumped into the car to drive to my next appointment, turned on the air conditioner and started making some calls (yes....using a headset). The iPhone was with me in the air-conditioned restaurant during lunch.

After leaving, I put my iPhone 5 on the center console before driving off to my next meeting.....The iPhone was sitting in the sun and I had 54% of the battery charge left.  After 20 minutes on the phone, the phone line suddenly went dead and this black and yellow screen to the right popped up.... I've had an iPhone for four years and have never seen this before.

It looks like the phone went from cool in the air-conditioned restaurant to overheated in 20 minutes. Wow, that was fast!

Once I realized what was going on, I quickly took the iPhone and held it by the air conditioning vent. It cooled down in less than five minutes and started working again. However, I did let it sit in the shade with the air-conditioning on it for another 15 minutes.

Here are some Simple Lessons Learned

  • Don't leave any smartphone sitting in the sun while driving on a very hot day... even for a short time.
  • The air-conditioner works great to fix the overheating
  • When you see the "Temperature Sign" above, you're screwed for a little while - however, every once in a while, it's OK not to talk on the phone while driving... right :)

 

Fun iPhone Facts

  • The iPhone operating temperature is: 32 to 95 degrees F (0 to 35 degrees C)
  • The non-operating temperature is: -4 to 113 degrees F (-20 to 45 degrees C)
  • Relative Humidity is:  5% to 95% non-condensing
  • Maximum operating altitude is: 10,000 feet (3,000 meters)

 

 The End

So that's it.   My iPhone 5 is working fine and I'm back to work.   Hope this helped. So what happened to your iPhone when it got really hot?