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iPhone 15 Pro Max 15 pro max quickly getting hot when using camera app on ios 17.1
- Thread starter vroom2
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Just decided to go to the Apple Store to test it on their display 15 PMs since this has been bugging me too.
All of them heated up exactly the same as mine. I would say they got “medium” warm. With the exception of shooting in a low light scenario, with or without night mode, mine got HOT, but obviously I couldn’t test low light in the Apple Store. This was with shooting constantly at 5x with fast shooting off, for probably like 50 photos in a row.
All were made in August, so I don’t think it varies from phone to phone, I guess there’s a slight chance it’s been “fixed” in later made phones. Seems more likely that there is a bug with low light computation especially on the new lens. I’m not going to fight for a replacement personally, I rarely shoot that many photos back to back, at 5x, in low light.
All of them heated up exactly the same as mine. I would say they got “medium” warm. With the exception of shooting in a low light scenario, with or without night mode, mine got HOT, but obviously I couldn’t test low light in the Apple Store. This was with shooting constantly at 5x with fast shooting off, for probably like 50 photos in a row.
All were made in August, so I don’t think it varies from phone to phone, I guess there’s a slight chance it’s been “fixed” in later made phones. Seems more likely that there is a bug with low light computation especially on the new lens. I’m not going to fight for a replacement personally, I rarely shoot that many photos back to back, at 5x, in low light.
Thank you for sharing this research. I am also not leaning towards a replacement. This does need to be sorted out though, as at this point Apple heavily markets the cameras on these devices.
I checked my battery after using and it showed a 20% usage for camera for 10 minutes of use. That’s certainly a problem.
Yet mine is at 2% after taking over 100 pictures on 5x within about 7 minutes. So, not sure what's going on. This phone was manufactured in July.
It's slightly warm directly underneath the camera lenses, but definitely not hot and the rest of the back is cold.
It's interesting how much battery Instagram takes up especially considering I barely use the app. YouTube is justified.
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Hmm another thing I just realized the old friend from my original overheat problem when making phone calls is back, home and Lock Screen is at 21%, seems related somehow. Whenever an app is causing excessive heat on iPhone 15 pm home and Lock Screen is again showing parallel usage.
I was at the Apple Store today and they had all the 15 Pro Max colors side by side. I held each one and felt the back of them:
- Natural Titanium - HOT
- White Titanium - HOT
- Black Titanium - HOT
- Blue Titanium - COOL
In my case I had the problem of overheating with camera App on a 15 PRO 256 BLUE. But you're right, I think it's a hardware problem in some terminals.
I returned it. I still have my iPhone X. If people stop having overheating problems I will buy it again. If not, I'll wait for the iPhone 16
Keeping the camera app open for 10 minutes won't heat it up. Try actually taking pictures for a few minutes, one every 2 seconds or so. It will get hot. All 15PM do that, with any iOS version. I've had it since 17.0 and still have it on 17.1. All of my friends' iPhone 15 Pro Max (4 of them in total) do it.
It's probably the processing happening when you actually take pictures. And yes, switching to 12 megapixels heats up less.
Taking 1-3 pictures then turn off won't be an issue, but when I am on vacation and around some landmark, I can maybe take 30 pictures of it in 3 minutes, and then you really feel it.
Also taking videos doesn't heat up mine.
I have the same problem. Taking 10+ photos in one or two minutes makes the phone warm. Would not call it ‚hot‘, but definitely warm.
Had a phone call with Apple today, they ran diagnostics but everything was good. They said I should reset the phone, but I already did that. Don‘t know what to do now. Just accept it?
Had a phone call with Apple today, they ran diagnostics but everything was good. They said I should reset the phone, but I already did that. Don‘t know what to do now. Just accept it?
I think we just need to accept it. Processing photos seems to be a high performance task which heats up the CPU/GPU. As long as Apple doesn't decide to throttle that activity and use the energy-efficiency cores, we cannot change it.
Accept it to an extent, it’s excessive right now. I think apple should get it better optimized (hopefully) in future software updates. The issue I am seeing that makes it unacceptable as it stands, is the rapid battery drain with the heat too.
for those who got a new phone: how did you do it? As long as the diagnostics are good, Apple won‘t send me a new phone despite Apple Care..
So, for me overheating manifested in a peculiar manner. With ambient of 90F, I was doing construction review in bright sunlight. Took some snaps, sent some text messages and checked some emails. All in native apple apps. Suddenly the phone got so hot that screen significantly dimmed, and refresh rate become pretty low, the scrolls became jittery and choppy. It never happened with my iPhone 14 PM.
When I came back home. I compared spouse’s 14PM side by side with my 15PM. Ran ANTUTU with maximum brightness on both phones(Auto brightness off). Within 2 mins 15 PM started to dim again where as 14 PM could run the complete test on max brightness.
Showed the same thing to Genius Bar. They ran diagnostics, restored but the issue persisted and they had to acknowledge and replace.
Your scenario outside is similar to mine, 89F bright sunlight, taking only a few snaps and reviewing the pics and snapping a few more, quickly got the very hot, screen dimmed, unsure of OS slowdown but possibly, I stopped using out of frustration and concern about the heat. I have never had that issue with any iPhone, I would shoot pics with the 14pm in bright sunlight 110F with 120F heat index this last summer and it easily outperformed the 15pm.
After reading all of the comments here, I am hesitant to get it replaced, as I did not have this issue in iOS 17.0.3, hoping it is addressed in firmware eventually. They fixed the ridiculous overheating during phone calls, so I have some hope.
My 15 Pro Max heats up considerably without even taking a single picture. The other night I opened the camera app, sat it down on my desk and walked away for about 10 minutes and when I came back the entire backside and side rails were really warm. Not burn danger warm but warm enough to be of concern. It may be worth noting that I’m running iOS 17.1 and my device wasn’t in a case at the time. I closed the camera app and it cooled back down. I force quit all background apps, restarted the phone, opened the camera app and again, major heat up within 5 minutes. I wiped the phone and did a clean restore which didn’t help, the phone continues to heat up every time the camera app is open and at one point it got warm enough that my brother said the room smelled like burnt electronics when he walked in.
I don’t know what to think at this point, these phones aren’t cheap and the main reason I chose the Pro Max was for the camera system. I’ve owned a lot of iPhones over the years and never had this problem. It’s weird that it only happens with the camera app, I’m on my phone a lot, sometimes hours at a time consuming media, playing games, etc and the phone feels as cool as it would if it was powered off. The Apple Store is not close and based on past experiences at the “Genius Bar” I would hate to make the trek and jump through the hoops just to be told it’s normal and send me on my way without any resolution.
I don’t know what to think at this point, these phones aren’t cheap and the main reason I chose the Pro Max was for the camera system. I’ve owned a lot of iPhones over the years and never had this problem. It’s weird that it only happens with the camera app, I’m on my phone a lot, sometimes hours at a time consuming media, playing games, etc and the phone feels as cool as it would if it was powered off. The Apple Store is not close and based on past experiences at the “Genius Bar” I would hate to make the trek and jump through the hoops just to be told it’s normal and send me on my way without any resolution.
17.2 public or dev? Ive Heard that the newest build for devs brought significant improvement in battery life, so maybe also with heating…