New iPad 3 overheating: myth or reality

New Apple iPad 3 overheating issue seems to be more a myth than reality. Though there are complaints of some customers experiencing it, nonetheless it is very limited, says Nabila Habib

Another plus of buying the new iPad 3: you can use it as your hand-warmer when it gets nippy because the new tablet is a truly ‘hot property’!

Customers have complained of the iPad 3 getting too warm for their comfort. They are not claiming it to get so hot that one can use it as a portable food warmer, but it is said to reach temperatures of 101-Farenheit instead of staying at the maximum limit of 95 Farenheit.

The feedback was from 150 posts and over 14,000 views in the company’s iPad support forum.

One post on Apple’s forum stated, “The iPad 3 wasn’t hot, but warm enough to be uncomfortable. That plus the extra weight made it not worth the new display to me, as awesome as it is.”

Others posts were reserved but clear nonetheless. One read, “Yes, it’s warmer than the previous iPads. But, what would anyone expect with so much going on in there? It has spectacular graphics, is faster, and has a huge battery. Any form of computer runs hotter when it is doing more.”

A staff member of Apple did acknowledge the new iPad heating up when apps that tax processors are used, but they say it “will not burn your hand!” Sounds like a pretty scary consolation.

Various reasons might cause the heating up like upgrades that have overlooked battery performance, inefficiencies or bugs in iOS 5.1 or just a design flaw that makes using graphically intensive games generate too much heat.

Vincent Battaglia, program manager of the Advanced Energy Technologies Department in the Environmental Energy Technologies Division of the U.S. Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, has stated that he has not evaluated the iPad’s battery, so the problem might be lying right there.

Battaglia said, “The problem is everyone wants these devices to last as long as possible before recharging.”

He explained that batteries used in mobile phones “are designed for a certain rate of power consumption, he explained, and demanding energy at a faster rate increases electrical resistance.”

He added, “[Apple] may have packed in too much energy, or maybe the average draw is higher than what was designed for.”

He also pointed out that current research in lithium ion batteries are more about longevity than higher conductivity. He said that very high quality batteries perform at 160 to 180 milliamp-hours per gram and beyond that, the material collapses.

He explained, “It would take a big leap in technology to double the energy density of batteries.”

So far Apple has not acknowledged any overheating issues in the new iPad. However, overheating issues were reported way back in 2005 with some first-generation iPad Nanos that Apple replaced after tracking down the issue to a battery with a manufacturing defect.

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Posted by admin on March 22, 2012. Filed under Business. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry