If you’ve ever felt your iPhone heating up to an uncomfortable level, you may be concerned about potential damage to your device’s internal components and battery life. But before you start to panic, it’s important to know that iPhones are actually designed to heat up under certain circumstances.
When you first set up your iPhone, it will naturally heat up due to all the background tasks and indexing required to establish a new device. However, iOS has measures in place to regulate the temperature and prevent overheating. For instance, if your iPhone gets too hot during the setup process, iOS will slow it down in response.
It’s also normal for your iPhone to heat up while charging, especially if it’s in a case or charging wirelessly. The electrons passing through the cable and into the battery generate a lot of heat, which is why iOS lowers the voltage if your iPhone reaches 95 degrees Fahrenheit to prevent overheating.
Using power-intensive apps or augmented reality features can also cause your iPhone to heat up, as the processor has to work at full force to deliver the necessary graphics performance. But once again, iOS prevents overheating by slowing down the processor in such situations.
However, problems can arise if your iPhone is in a unique environment that prevents these preventative actions from cooling the device. For example, if you use your iPhone in direct sunlight for too long, or leave it in your car on a hot day, it may overheat.
One of the most common causes of overheating is charging your iPhone while using GPS navigation in a car while in direct sunlight. This combines heat from a processor-intensive task, with heat from charging, and even more heat from sunlight.
In such situations, your iPhone may enter an emergency cooling mode where it alters a number of features to bring its temperature down. For instance, it may reduce charging voltage, dim the display, put its cellular radios in a low power state, disable the camera flash, and slow down the processor.
If all these actions fail to cool your iPhone, then iOS delivers an overheating alert saying that the device needs to cool down before you can use it. This means that your iPhone has finally gotten too hot and is at risk of permanent damage.
If this happens, stop using your phone, put it in a spot out of direct sunlight, and wait for it to cool down. Remember, it’s important to take care of your iPhone and be aware of its temperature to prevent permanent damage.