iPhone 15 Pro Max iPhone 15 Pro Max heating up while using camera: 12 vs 24 megapixel

[ManuCH]

So I'm one of those people who noticed the iPhone 15 Pro Max becoming hot while taking pictures. I have been on vacation those past 2 weeks and I've taken hundreds of pictures. My battery has been draining a lot and the iPhone has become hot quite often, even on iOS 17.0.3.

Now I've taken my time to experiment a bit and I had an idea. By testing around, I discovered that by lowering the resolution to 12 megapixel (as opposed to the new default 24 megapixel), it heats up way way less.

Try the experiment yourself: take 30 pictures on a row, one every 2 seconds, using 12 megapixel, and feel how warm the iPhone gets. Then let it cool down, and do the same with 24 megapixel.

The difference is huge on mine. Am I the only one? Or can this be reproduced on all devices?

I don't think that's anything anyone talked about yet in their blog articles and whatnot. In my opinion, the temperature difference resulting from taking photos at 24 MP vs 12 MP is huge. And therefore battery usage is probably also very different between the 2 resolutions.

In the end, it's about what matters the most: picture quality, or battery life.

 

[kvlq]

you're absolutely right..I took 120photos just for testing, and my 15 pro became VERY VERY hot... never felt it that warm.

 

[thatJohann]

Interesting. Mine became very hot during photos too. Also on 7.0.3

 

[now i see it]

Since the output image is the result of ‘computational photography ‘, it makes sense that the SOC has to do more work to render an image. It’s got to figure out 12 million more pixels and manipulate them when shooting at 24mp vs 12mp

 

[teeshot44]

15PM on 17.1B3, 35 pics at 24 over 75 sec followed by 10 minute video at 4K 24 fps. There was no noticeable change in the feel in heat on the phone.

 

[ibuyufo]

I've been on the ios 17.1 beta and did not find any issue shooting 4k videos at a concert. These were over 15 minutes long videos.

 

[F23]

well it’s doing trillions of computations a second with no cooling system

 

[sstiwari]

well it’s doing trillions of computations a second with no cooling system

Yeah.... But no one asked apple to implement it, when their hardware doesn't support that(I mean the cooling part).

They could have used better sensors / cooling systems. But that would have lowered the margins, and Profit is something they won't compromise with, even if it is at the cost of customer satisfaction.

Or, may be due to poor yield of 3nm, Apple okayed some of the rejected processors, while are not able to do these calculations efficiently. That might explain, some of us experiencing heating while others are not.

 

[ManuCH]

15PM on 17.1B3, 35 pics at 24 over 75 sec followed by 10 minute video at 4K 24 fps. There was no noticeable change in the feel in heat on the phone.

Actually 4K video doesn't heat mine up as much, that's quite ok. Only many 24 MP pictures in a row do.

 

[ibookemo]

So I'm one of those people who noticed the iPhone 15 Pro Max becoming hot while taking pictures. I have been on vacation those past 2 weeks and I've taken hundreds of pictures. My battery has been draining a lot and the iPhone has become hot quite often, even on iOS 17.0.3.

Now I've taken my time to experiment a bit and I had an idea. By testing around, I discovered that by lowering the resolution to 12 megapixel (as opposed to the new default 24 megapixel), it heats up way way less.

Try the experiment yourself: take 30 pictures on a row, one every 2 seconds, using 12 megapixel, and feel how warm the iPhone gets. Then let it cool down, and do the same with 24 megapixel.

The difference is huge on mine. Am I the only one? Or can this be reproduced on all devices?

I don't think that's anything anyone talked about yet in their blog articles and whatnot. In my opinion, the temperature difference resulting from taking photos at 24 MP vs 12 MP is huge. And therefore battery usage is probably also very different between the 2 resolutions.

In the end, it's about what matters the most: picture quality, or battery life.

This makes perfect sense to me - I think you’re perfectly correct. The phone is doing a lot more work to get warm. I think it’s partly due to the software involved being pretty new. I‘d bet a million dollars that in the next year the software will be improved a lot through iOS updates and the issue will reduce greatly.

I always think that the software is worst when a new phone is released then gets gradually better/optimized for the new features. What you are calling out seems perfectly logical.

 

[ps4db]

Interestingly, if I switch off Location access to the camera, it's not even warm. There's definitely something going on here with regards to software. My 2 cents....

 

[now i see it]

When the new 3nm chip is required to do extra work — it gets really hot.