So I had a rough day with the GPS on my cellphone – hence I thought of updating this website with the account of my bizarre travels. It was a 1 hour drive to a place I had never been to before. I turned on the GPS, set the coordinates and by the end of it, my smartphone was boiling hot.

I searched the interwebs to look for a reason why smartphone heat up. Looks like I wasn’t alone because a lot of people complain about their smartphone’s unusual temperature spikes. Especially the iPhone community has many problems associated with their handsets getting warmer.

This girl writes at one of the forums about how her iPhone 4S got overheated. I’m going to write down bits and pieces of her complaint here:

I have a how-to question. Last summer my iPhone 4S, while driving from Colorado to San Diego, overheated. I was using the GPS navigation app and also media files (listening to music and stuff) at the same time.

Since then, I have been trying to find a cooling solution that would reduce the temperature of my iPhone 4S. Can you help me?

By the way, this crazy bimbo got her smartphone heated up so much that she had to chuck it in the car’s AC vents a few times to reduce the device’s temperature. If your smartphone heats up like this, you need to do the following to curtail the issue:

• Apple has a support article entirely dedicated to helping people out with their iPhones getting overheated. If you haven’t read that article, here’s the link to it.

Under alarming situations, the iPhone simply shuts down. Let’s say you are playing a game that uses GPS navigation at the same time – when your iPhone heats up to a specific temperature, it will shut down on its own. You will have to turn it on after a few minutes.

However, iPhone is not the only smartphone with heat issues. I have used both HTC and Samsung Galaxy models with the same issues. The phones got hot when on GPS. What’s the big deal here?

• You can disable the unnecessary location services. GPS really gets the phone to a burning hot state. If you are not really relying on location services for the time being, just disable them through the smartphone’s settings section.
• Your car adapter could be creating issues here. With many third party car cellphone charging kits and charging docks, the overheating issue normally kicks in. However with a power adaptor that is not only of high quality but also recommended by your smartphone company, you are better off to a risk free journey.
• You can also erase all the data from the phone, either by hard code or through factory default settings. Bear in mind that this is more like a last minute resort if all else has failed.
• During summer season, do not cuddle up your smartphone with a snuggly case. Mobile phone cases could be a bitch at times.
• Decrease the contrast and brightness of your smartphone and don’t check for messages every few seconds. By constantly engaging your smartphone, you are not letting the screen take rest. It will warm up naturally. The overheating might be a protest!

In the end, you can throw your smartphone at the retailer who sold it to you in the first place. Besides a blue eye, the retailer will be in for a slightly used device. He will sell it to unsuspecting buyers after a refurbish. 

This entry was posted on Thursday, January 3rd, 2013 at 7:29 AM and is filed under How To, Smartphones. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.