Amid all of the excitement during this weekend’s iPhone 15 launch, some early buyers took to social media to complain about overheating handsets that were affecting comfort and performance. While most people assumed it was due to the A17 Pro processor, a new report suggests that might not be the case.
According to analyst Ming-Chi Kuo, the iPhone 15 Pro’s overheating issues are “unrelated to TSMC’s advanced 3nm node,” the new process Apple is using for the breakthrough A17 Pro processor. Rather, Kuo explains, the overheating issue is likely caused by “the compromises made in the thermal system design to achieve a lighter weight, such as the reduced heat dissipation area and the use of a titanium frame, which negatively impacts thermal efficiency.”
The Wall Street Journal also reported that design issues may be to blame, including, as Kuo claims, the phone’s titanium sides. The iPhone 15 Pro models have dramatically reduced weight, with the Pro Max shedding some 20 grams and feeling much lighter than the iPhone 14 Pro Max. However, as iFixit reported, Apple made some internal changes as well that could have affected the cooling of the chip.
Bloomberg reported that Apple’s tech support team has been fielding calls about the issue and advising customers to monitor their app usage and setup. Other reports claim that some apps, including Notes and Instagram, are causing overheating. And other users haven’t experienced any issues with heat at all.
Kuo says Apple is expected to address the overheating issues in a software update, though he cautions that “improvements may be limited unless Apple lowers processor performance.” It will likely be several weeks before such a fix is implemented as Apple hasn’t started beta testing iOS 17.1 yet.
In our testing, we also found our iPhone 15 Pro Max got pretty hot during charging, an issue that has also been fairly widespread among early adopters. The iPhone 15 has a USB-C charging/data port for the first time after using Lightning for the past 10 years. Kuo doesn’t mention whether Apple is investigating this particular issue.
Update 9/28: Added reports from Bloomberg and The Wall Street Journal.
Author: Michael Simon, Executive Editor
Michael Simon has been covering Apple since the iPod was the iWalk. His obsession with technology goes back to his first PC—the IBM Thinkpad with the lift-up keyboard for swapping out the drive. He's still waiting for that to come back in style tbh.