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Apple remains silent on iPhone 15 Pro's heating issue despite mounting evidence
- Users continue to report heating issues on the iPhone 15 Pro and iPhone 15 Pro Max.
- Apple has yet to acknowledge the problem, release a statement, or advise a solution specific to these phones.
- The overheating is attributed mainly to the use of titanium, reduced heat dissipation area, and errant apps.
As more and more users get their hands on the iPhone 15 series, the numbers rise on the complaints about the iPhone 15 Pro and iPhone 15 Pro Max running hotter than what is humanly comfortable. We’ve previously reported on early adopters facing issues with heat, and now more consumers and more recent waves of adopters are also facing the same. Despite the chatter, Apple has not commented on the issue.
The heating problem with the iPhone 15 Pro and 15 Pro Max
Our early report stemmed from my personal experience with my iPhone 15 Pro Max and those of several noted reviewers, all of whom faced the issue in some capacity.
While all phones heat up when pushed to the limits, the peculiarity with the iPhone 15 Pro’s heating issue is that it heats up during regular usage, too. Users have reported that the Pro phones get extremely hot during phone calls and FaceTime calls.
My iPhone got very hot when browsing Instagram Reels for about 10 minutes. In my case, the heat is not from running benchmarks or games or from simultaneously charging.
Further, charging the device without any tasks actively running in the background also causes it to heat up, as users have complained. Charging my iPhone 15 Pro Max with my 65W USB PD GaN charger (which I have used with previous iPhones, Android flagships, laptops, earbuds, and more) yields temperatures as high as 40.6°C/105°F.
As my colleague Robert Triggs found out in his iPhone 15 Pro overheating investigation, the device runs hotter than top Android competitors during benchmarks and gets toasty when charging. Other tests from reputed sources also show the same trend: the iPhone 15 Pro and 15 Pro Max can get hot.
Complicating this entire saga is that these issues are only cropping up for some users and not all of them. Some complaints are coming in for older iPhones also getting hot with the iOS 17 update, which makes it very difficult to narrow this issue down to a software bug on the new update or a hardware defect on the new iPhone.
What is Apple doing about the heating issue on the iPhone 15 Pro and iPhone 15 Pro Max?
Curiously, Apple has remained silent about this issue so far. We contacted the company for a statement before our first report and followed up again yesterday but have not received any response. We’ve yet to see a comment on this issue shared with other publications.
Apple has remained silent about the issue so far.
On the consumer end, Mark Gurman reports via Bloomberg that Apple technical support staffers are handling these issues by pointing customers to an old support page. This support page covers overheating scenarios when using intensive apps, charging, or setting up a new device for the first time but does not explicitly address the iPhone 15 Pro.
Is there a solution to the heating issue on the iPhone 15 Pro and iPhone 15 Pro Max?
Noted analyst Ming-Chi Kuo suggests that the likely cause of these heating issues is not the 3nm A17 Pro SoC. Instead, it is likely to be the “compromises made in the thermal system design to achieve a lighter weight,” such as using a titanium frame and the reduced heat dissipation area.
A report from the Wall Street Journal suggests that the physical SIM card slot on iPhones in regions other than the USA could also be an additional factor. However, even US-based expert phone reviewers like MKBHD have complained of the overheating issue on an eSIM-only iPhone 15 Pro when scrolling through Instagram, so we do not think a physical SIM slot is a significant contributing factor.
In the above scenarios, the only “fix” would be a recall and redesign of the iPhone, which is unlikely to happen immediately. What is more likely to happen is that a software update will attempt to fix the issue, presumably by throttling the performance of the overkill chip to generate less heat.
YouTuber iPhonedo narrowed down one set of complaints to the Instagram app rapidly heating the phone, and I could confirm the same on my unit. The Instagram app was recently updated on iOS (about a day ago), and for me, this has brought down the random overheating. Other apps could also be a potential problem, and app updates could potentially solve the issue.
The heat generation during charging remains an issue for me for now.
It remains to be seen how long it will take for Apple to address the overall heating issue and if the company publicly acknowledges the problem and its solution(s).