iPhone 15 Pro Max Thermalgate (yup, it's happening): Pics of how you're coping

[StudioMacs]

I’m not freaking out. But thanks for your concern. I have never had any iPhone that got hot and after a week and it’s still doing it while 2 other peopl in my house have a pro and pro max and theirs do not do it, well that seems like an issue to me. It doesn’t hurt at all to take to Apple , maybe I could have received a phone with issues. I’m just trying to figure it out and try all options available. Thank you

Backup you iPhone to a Mac (or iCloud). Make sure iCloud sync is turned on for everything. Then perform a DFU restore on your Mac or itunes in windows and set your iPhone up as a brand new device. If it doesn’t get warm after a couple of days, you know it’s a software issue. Start installing third party apps one at a time until you find the culprit.

 

[LMMAACC]

Backup you iPhone to a Mac (or iCloud). Make sure iCloud sync is turned on for everything. Then perform a DFU restore on your Mac or itunes in windows and set your iPhone up as a brand new device. If it doesn’t get warm after a couple of days, you know it’s a software issue. Start installing third party apps one at a time until you find the culprit.

Ok. Thank you for your help. I will give that a try and let you know

 

[Fat_Guy]

This guy has a different take on it.

In the end he blames it on the build and frame design like other notable insiders. Less aluminum and add titanium and it heats the phone according to him. He doesn’t see a fix at hand that would be acceptable without a class action lawsuit.





He can’t recommend it (pro series) and he did the evaluation with another tech enthusiast. He also deleted the meta apps like some say as the cause and it did not help. He was able to get 52 degrees out of the base 15 but said there was a reason for that as he was filming with it and it was hot conditions - so relax iphone 15 users. It’s all about the pros. A17 sucks more power than the Samsung and gave the figures. And that gave the phone poor heat dissipation to save weight.





Titanium has to go…



BTW: He was really uncomfortable not recommending it as he is now in Apple’s s**t list. But he could not in good consciense pass this problem over.

 

[callen_v1]

How hot does a phone have to be before it counts as "overheating"? Some people are reporting warm phones as overheating despite not receiving the shutdown warning.

My phone only gets warm when wireless charging or running graphically intense games, the highest temperature recorded via IR thermometer was 38°C on both the front and back surface right where the logic board is.

Personally, I'd have to say if it throttles because of heat, it's a problem.

 

[StudioMacs]

This guy has a different take on it.

In the end he blames it on the build and frame design like other notable insiders. Less aluminum and add titanium and it heats the phone according to him. He doesn’t see a fix at hand that would be acceptable without a class action lawsuit.





He can’t recommend it (pro series) and he did the evaluation with another tech enthusiast. He also deleted the meta apps like some say as the cause and it did not help. He was able to get 52 degrees out of the base 15 but said there was a reason for that as he was filming with it and it was hot conditions - so relax iphone 15 users. It’s all about the pros. A17 sucks more power than the Samsung and gave the figures. And that gave the phone poor heat dissipation to save weight.





Titanium has to go…

Since all iPhone 15 Pros do not exhibit this behavior, we can safely dismiss these conclusions.

It would be more productive to help people diagnose the various reason they could be experiencing an issue, but that’s not as sensational.

 

[NEPOBABY]

This guy has a different take on it.

In the end he blames it on the build and frame design like other notable insiders. Less aluminum and add titanium and it heats the phone according to him. He doesn’t see a fix at hand that would be acceptable without a class action lawsuit.





He can’t recommend it (pro series) and he did the evaluation with another tech enthusiast. He also deleted the meta apps like some say as the cause and it did not help. He was able to get 52 degrees out of the base 15 but said there was a reason for that as he was filming with it and it was hot conditions - so relax iphone 15 users. It’s all about the pros. A17 sucks more power than the Samsung and gave the figures. And that gave the phone poor heat dissipation to save weight.





Titanium has to go…



BTW: He was really uncomfortable not recommending it as he is now in Apple’s s**t list. But he could not in good consciense pass this problem over.

Stop listening to clowns.

There's no heat gate otherwise I would be the loudest to complain.

I've pressure tested the 15PM for a week now.

It was only warm the first two days because of setting up, indexing and playing around with ProRes Apple Log.

The last part is the main thing to remember.

If you are recording AppleLog at 200MB per second while running all kinds of social media apps running then ANY handheld device is going to get warm.

A new device has new power features and higher clock speeds. People pressure test these new features and some people may not be aware of what they are doing because it comes naturally.

Conveniently forgetting things like that makes people sound like lunatics or ignoramuses.

Then we have the issue of Android trolls creating new accounts to spam forums. This has been easy to spot with 'newbie' accounts popping up suddenly every year after a new phone release and making the same complaints FROM A SCRIPT.

 

[teh_hunterer]

This guy has a different take on it.

Lots of people cashing in on the clickbait frenzy, yeah.

In the end he blames it on the build and frame design like other notable insiders. Less aluminum and add titanium and it heats the phone according to him. He doesn’t see a fix at hand that would be acceptable without a class action lawsuit.

Absolute nonsense. You and others are reaching so far with this. Benchmark stress test the 15 Pro next to a 14 Pro and it doesn't get significantly hotter. How do you explain that?

Titanium has to go…

Hahaha, does it now? If you or any of the other yahoos jumping to massive conclusions bothered to test it yourselves, you would see that the mostly aluminium frame on the 15 Pro actually radiates MORE heat out of the side rails than any of the stainless steel rail phones. Far more heat, actually.

When an iOS update fixes the issue where phones are randomly heating up, are you going to come back and admit that this is all nonsense?

 

[Fat_Guy]

Since all iPhone 15 Pros do not exhibit this behavior, we can safely dismiss these conclusions.

It would be more productive to help people diagnose the various reason they could be experiencing an issue, but that’s not as sensational.

I still think low grade chips are a part of it but that’s conjecture and he didn’t go there. Only what he and this other guy could see and measure.


He in the first I can see to publicly not recommend Apple’s flagship phone. For that he definitely has some balls!

 

[NEPOBABY]

I still think low grade chips are a part of it but that’s conjecture and he didn’t go there. Only what he and this other guy could see and measure.


He in the first I can see to publicly not recommend Apple’s flagship phone. For that he definitely has some balls!

Ask Mr Balls if his channel is monetised and if he is earning money from 'having balls'.

 

[Fat_Guy]

Lots of people cashing in on the clickbait frenzy, yeah.



Absolute nonsense. You and others are reaching so far with this. Benchmark stress test the 15 Pro next to a 14 Pro and it doesn't get significantly hotter. How do you explain that?



Hahaha, does it now? If you or any of the other yahoos jumping to massive conclusions bothered to test it yourselves, you would see that the mostly aluminium frame on the 15 Pro actually radiates MORE heat out of the side rails than any of the stainless steel rail phones. Far more heat, actually.

When an iOS update fixes the issue where phones are randomly heating up, are you going to come back and admit that this is all nonsense?

No and he claims that doing that is class action lawsuit time (throttling down). 🤣


He even talked about them doing it quietly - this guy brave…

 

[NEPOBABY]

When an iOS update fixes the issue where phones are randomly heating up, are you going to come back and admit that this is all nonsense?

What will happen is this.

For PR purposes Apple will likely release an update with 'optimizations' to shut these trolls up.

App developers such as Meta will be sent messages to ask them to tidy up their resource hogging apps.

But then we have the side loading issue that is going to happen in the future.

You cannot police app developers outside the App Store. They can develop apps that harm the device by hogging resources, using too much CPU and RAM, having bad memory leaks.

All those side loaders are going to complain on forums that it is Apple's fault when it is actually their own fault for using bad apps.

 

[ManuCH]

I think the heat issue is simply a combination of several factors:

• during the first hours after installing the iPhone, it's the famous indexing. Yes, that should be done in a matter of 20 minutes up to a couple of hours maximum. Not days, as many keep saying
• during the first few days, when charging the iPhone it will also analyze photos, recognize faces, all that stuff. Which will make it warmer while charging during those first days

These 2 factors have always been there. My 15PM hasn't been warmer than the 14PM during initial setup and while charging + doing photo recognition.

Then, we have a 3rd factor, which is new:

• for some random reason, iOS 17 sometimes starts using high CPU, which then heats up the phone. Any iPhone, not just the 15PM. And I'm confident that this will be identified and fixed with an update. Or it might be "runaway apps" that get stuck. It's a matter of finding them, then deleting and reinstalling (often easier said than done).

There is no "gate" of any kind, and all those clickbait cash-making youtube clowns who just come up with conjectures have no clue of what they're talking about. A17 binning, titanium, aluminum frame, this and that... come on, Apple is not *that* dumb.

 

[ZombiePete]

I've had my ProMax since Saturday and have yet to have it get warm or hot while using it... It even stays relatively cool while charging with 18w charger.. Seems not everyone is experiencing "thermalgate"

Same here; I’ve even played a couple of games I never played on my 14 PM (e.g. Slay the Spire) and it has remained at a normal temp. I think that there is some software issue, possibly with specific apps, creating the thermal issue. I love the yearly “gate” crap though; never gets old.

 

[ahmede]

The heat issue is for real , Apple would of released a press statement days ago denying the problem.

 

[teh_hunterer]

No and he claims that doing that is class action lawsuit time (throttling down). 🤣


He even talked about them doing it quietly - this guy brave…

Why would an update to iOS throttle it down? When you run the 15 Pro in benchmark stress tests next to a 14 Pro, it doesn't get significantly hotter. So what would throttling down the A17 Pro achieve?

You dodged all my questions: Benchmark stress test the 15 Pro next to a 14 Pro and it doesn't get significantly hotter. How do you explain that?

The mostly aluminium chassis radiates more heat out of the side rails than the stainless steel iPhones. But you said titanium has to go. How do you explain that?

The iPhone 15 with the same A16 chip from last year, and no titanium at all, suffers from the exact same random heating up issue. How do you explain that?

When an iOS update fixes this random heating issue on all phones without downclocking the SoC, will you come back here and admit you and that YouTuber were wrong?

 

[yustas]

Ok. Thank you for your help. I will give that a try and let you know

Look at your analytics on the phone. It should show what causes 100% CPU utilization and any other issues.

 

[ab2c4]

Is the heat problem effecting any of the non Pro 15’s? Or is it only effecting the Pros?

 

[crouch]

Stop listening to clowns.

There's no heat gate otherwise I would be the loudest to complain.

I've pressure tested the 15PM for a week now.

"I'm not having a problem so no one else is either" -- what an awful take.

What's been interesting ever since the heating issues plaguing the 15 have hit the national news is the sheer amount of Apple influencers deluging Apple-related sites to bully, mock, and gaslight users. What's hilarious is they're all using the same talking points over and over again (e.g. rants about click-baiting).

Then you have the less emotionally-regulated influencers (or even worse, Apple fanboys who are doing Apple's work for free lol) who are resorting to calling people stupid or clowns like a junior high-school bully. Thanks for making the world a worse place.

In the meantime, thanks to all of you who are trying to diagnose the problem, sharing your issues so that they get solved one way or another. We need more people like you.

 

[TechnoMonk]

This guy has a different take on it.

In the end he blames it on the build and frame design like other notable insiders. Less aluminum and add titanium and it heats the phone according to him. He doesn’t see a fix at hand that would be acceptable without a class action lawsuit.





He can’t recommend it (pro series) and he did the evaluation with another tech enthusiast. He also deleted the meta apps like some say as the cause and it did not help. He was able to get 52 degrees out of the base 15 but said there was a reason for that as he was filming with it and it was hot conditions - so relax iphone 15 users. It’s all about the pros. A17 sucks more power than the Samsung and gave the figures. And that gave the phone poor heat dissipation to save weight.





Titanium has to go…



BTW: He was really uncomfortable not recommending it as he is now in Apple’s s**t list. But he could not in good consciense pass this problem over.

That’s a huge reach, if that was the problem, Apple would have been in big trouble. You can’t get around those structural issues with only few units getting warm. It’s most likely App+A17+iOS mismatch. Apple most likely engineered from M3 scaling down to A17.

 

[yustas]

There is no "gate" of any kind, and all those clickbait cash-making youtube clowns who just come up with conjectures have no clue of what they're talking about. A17 binning, titanium, aluminum frame, this and that... come on, Apple is not *that* dumb.

I have never had any issues with any iPhones over the years. But after upgrading to 16.5.1 my 13 Pro Max started experiencing the heat/battery issues exactly as described by others. It seems to be iOS/Apps issue, but it's there.

 

[Fat_Guy]

Why would an update to iOS throttle it down? When you run the 15 Pro in benchmark stress tests next to a 14 Pro, it doesn't get significantly hotter. So what would throttling down the A17 Pro achieve?

You dodged all my questions: Benchmark stress test the 15 Pro next to a 14 Pro and it doesn't get significantly hotter. How do you explain that?

The mostly aluminium chassis radiates more heat out of the side rails than the stainless steel iPhones. But you said titanium has to go. How do you explain that?

The iPhone 15 with the same A16 chip from last year, and no titanium at all, suffers from the exact same random heating up issue. How do you explain that?

When an iOS update fixes this random heating issue on all phones without downclocking the SoC, will you come back here and admit you and that YouTuber were wrong?

The ordinary 15s do not suffer from overheating “that can’t be explained” so they are recommended.


I think the only way out is to give each Pro user a toggle switch in the settings for economy or performance with the proviso that performance can heat up the phone diminishing battery life and may require things like a fan clipped in the back. That could work.


I had the same problems last year from “camera shake gate” and the guy that broke the story said he could not recommend the phone - and he is still around.


So it’s not the end of the world but tech enthusiasts and journalists have a job to do regardless of what the fans think. And he was right to not recommend the 14 Pro phones last year while I held one in my hand. Until the issue was fixed his recommendation was spot on!

 

[callen_v1]

Why would an update to iOS throttle it down? When you run the 15 Pro in benchmark stress tests next to a 14 Pro, it doesn't get significantly hotter. So what would throttling down the A17 Pro achieve?

You dodged all my questions: Benchmark stress test the 15 Pro next to a 14 Pro and it doesn't get significantly hotter. How do you explain that?

The mostly aluminium chassis radiates more heat out of the side rails than the stainless steel iPhones. But you said titanium has to go. How do you explain that?

The iPhone 15 with the same A16 chip from last year, and no titanium at all, suffers from the exact same random heating up issue. How do you explain that?

When an iOS update fixes this random heating issue on all phones without downclocking the SoC, will you come back here and admit you and that YouTuber were wrong?

You are right. If it's happening to phones with the A16 as well it's likely a software issue. Why some have it and others don't? That's how bugs go. Software issues are still serious and Apple better get control over it because it's reached a broad audience. Local news, national news, WSJ, NYT. Not good optics no matter the problem.

 

[callen_v1]

There is no "gate" of any kind, and all those clickbait cash-making youtube clowns who just come up with conjectures have no clue of what they're talking about. A17 binning, titanium, aluminum frame, this and that... come on, Apple is not *that* dumb.

Software issues are no less serious. This has gotten high vis. Not good. BTW, You're holding it wrong.

 

[coso]

I'm still amazed there are those who still think this is a problem common to all iPhones 15 / Pro like it's a design flaw

 

[Fat_Guy]

Is the heat problem effecting any of the non Pro 15’s? Or is it only effecting the Pros?

Only pros have the problem. They can get a regular to over heat but they have to work on it deliberately. So they are recommended.