How to Prevent iPhone Overheating

Apple has totally put it’s neck in the safe court with the statement. “We’re not to blame for a series of exploding iPods and iPhones”.

The company had been under fire for devices overheating and shattering across Europe.

Exploding Cases

This exploding iPhone business is no joke: The European Union actually launched a formal inquiry last week after a teen in France said his girlfriend’s iPhone screen blew up without warning and sent a shard of glass into his eye. Witnesses told a local paper the phone began to “crackle and pop like a deep-fryer”.

The France incident wasn’t alone, either: It was preceded by a handful of other reports of exploding Apple devices in Europe and the U.K. In one instance, a man claimed Apple tried to keep him from talking by offering a full refund in exchange for his signature on a gag order. He reportedly refused, instead bringing the alleged smoking gun to the U.K.’s Times newspaper.

Why iPhone Explodes?

There are multiple reasons. Apple Claims Jailbreaking iPhone/ iPod causes overheating of the device, and might cause explosions in some extreme cases. But, Apple even claimed Jailbreaking can bring down Telcos like AT&T. How much is it justified?

Looks like yes, they are right, atleast for this time. Jailbreaking causes modification of iPhone’s MobileSubstrate, Baseband ,which are like the key controller of the Phone.

Baseband and MobileSubstrate control all system operations from calls to system health check. It is said that iPhone has capability of detecting overheating and makes iPhone cooler by reducing the CPU’s clock to a lower value.

But when it’s jailbroken, this capability is overridden and iPhone no longer does intelligent power management. In addition, Jailbroken apps can utilize higher CPU at moments without alerting the system for  any control over it. As a result, CPU could go to max Clock speed, and keep on heating the device till it becomes burning hot. Explosion would be a rare case to it. When electronics are taken to high temperatures, the integrated circuits (ICs) can explode, or sometime battery (lithium Ion) can catch fire.

This overheating is more amplified in iPhone 3G S, because it has better processor – faster and hence dissipates more heat when running at full capacity.

Preventing Overheating, Explosions.

I wrote an article about this article, here is the long story short-

Symptoms of overheating

In addition, to Device getting, you might observe these.

• iPhone will no longer charge
• iPhone display will dim
• Weaker cell signal

Prevention and Cure –

Meanwhile, the iPhone user manual states:

“You cannot use iPhone while the temperature warning screen is displayed except to make an emergency call. If none of the above measures succeeds in lowering the internal temperature, iPhone automatically goes into a deep sleep mode until it cools. You cannot make an emergency call when iPhone is in this mode. Move iPhone to a cooler location and wait a few minutes before trying to use iPhone again.”

The Blame Game

So if Apple’s not to blame for the detonating devices, who is? The company now says it’s the customers, claiming some sort of improper handling led to the explosions.

“In all cases, the glass cracked due to an external force that was applied to the iPhone,” a London-based spokesperson tells Bloomberg.

That explanation seems to contradict the statement by the teen from France, who’s quoted by the AP as saying his girlfriend’s phone “was not dropped and experienced no unusual shock” before its sudden combustion. (To be fair, applying some sort of “external force” could have been a “usual” occurrence for the couple. Interpret as you will.)

Either way, the investigation doesn’t appear to be over. Apple reps met with French government officials to talk about the complaints and “possible measures” that could be taken, the AP reports, and independent experts from the U.S. are said to be conducting further tests as well.

Of course, you could always just side with the satirists and point the finger at Apple’s “oppressive regime.” Hey, it’s your call.