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iPhone 17 Pro's Alleged Vapor Chamber Cooling System Partly Revealed

The aforementioned article by Bu (bless his iconoclastic soul) is a semi-incredible, yet incredibly-subtle, study in typography, and web design:

The visceral ways in which Bu continues to meld ideas and precedent together into a semi-cohesive whole (all while tickling the tips of our antennae, as we explore this brave, new future) is astounding . . . the say the least!

The ways in which Bu gently introduces fresh, new possibilities into the forefront of the reader's pre-frontal cognition ultimately belies the products of any potential limbic response.

I clicked it twice!
 
ps3zocker said:
Can we please start with iPhones not immediately overheating when used outside and keeping the display readable and not turning down to 0% when exposed to a bit of sun light?
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Or while taking more than a couple of photos in a row. I am not sure if it is just because I dont use a case, but it gets hot very quickly from taking a simple photo.
 
SumYoungGai said:
On a hot summer day (90 degrees plus), if you go outside and stand in the sun with the sunlight directly on the display at 100% brightness, it will most likely dim within a minute or so.
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In my experience it doesn't even have to be over 90. I was outside on a cloudy day (today) with the temps in the low 80s and the screen did the dimming thing within a couple minutes' use.
 
emrelee said:
That's basically how fridges works since 1834, but it’s always exciting when Apple explains how they’re the first to come up with an "old" new idea at their events.
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Pretty sure there aren't a lot of refrigerators around that have like 1-2mm of working space to fit the cooling mechanism into.
 
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Etc_ said:
They say they have improved the cooling with every generation since the iPhone 13, but it’s still the same problem because the performance gains of the chip offset the improvements in cooling.
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No, on iPhone 15 they made the cpu run in a higher wattage than before to make it faster, therefore it heated way more
 
I'm hoping this is true just so those complaining that the two-panel back design is simply "change for change's sake" will find something else to bellyache about.
 
Just have to ask two questions:

How much of an impact does a case have on device heating? More - or less - than this Vapor Chamber? And is it the effects of the insolation or insulation that are greater?

How much of an impact does the colour have on an uncased iPhone? We can probably assume that black/dark colours suffer more from insolation. But do white/light colours reduce emissivity across the relevant frequencies appreciably?

If these are at all significant, what colour a should my next phone be?
(Asked somewhat tongue in cheek because I always use a case, am rarely in high temperatures, and won't be buying another phone for a long time.)
 
I use a K Tomoto silicone bumper on my 14 Pro Max, and I think the fact that the back side is fully open helps to keep it cool. It’s a shame that bumpers aren’t more popular because they really do prevent heat from being trapped on the back side of the phone.
 
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LavaShark said:
How? Like can you do this and not have the phone fully turned on? My phone always turns on when I charge it while off. Or is that the point? Are you just saying that it's better to charge from a powered off state?
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You need to first plug the USB C/lightning cable and then turn off the phone from control center or by holding power button and volume up button, it will charge but turned off. Works every time, I often use it in hot weather so that it doesn’t heat like a frying pan.

Alternatively you can also make a script in shortcuts so it will disable bluetooth, wifi and set airplane mode, I often use it as an alternative to turning off the phone but it seems to be not as effective
 
Le0M said:
Is it just me, or iPhones and iPad still overheats making a facetime call?
I mean, apart from a slightly improved camera, everything else is roughly the same as older devices.
I'm baffled that regardless much lower cpu/gpu consumption compared to much older devices, they overheat just as much!
Not to mention battery draining...

What am I missing?
Any expert here?
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Facetime calls now have the centerstage where the camera array constantly tracks faces to frame it. That's CPU constantly working.

Also Continuity features as well as iPhone Mirroring regardless it's used or not, probably have effects on power draw.
 
Andy_2341 said:
What are y’all doing with your iPhones to make them get hot so easily? My SE3 overheated 1 time after being left in direct sunlight for several hours in a black case. My 15 Pro has never overheated and I take advantage of full brightness in direct sunlight often as well as game at max settings connected to an external 4k monitor.

Of course, I’m still excited for the vapor chamber.
Click to expand...

When I switched online photo storage providers my 15 Pro became too hot to touch while it uploaded the photos, it paused the upload a dozen times or so due to heat.

I received a warning about heat on Saturday when recording a video of my Son playing on the beach, it was a hot day by UK standards, the screen also became so dim it was practically useless.
 
Andy_2341 said:
What are y’all doing with your iPhones to make them get hot so easily? My SE3 overheated 1 time after being left in direct sunlight for several hours in a black case. My 15 Pro has never overheated and I take advantage of full brightness in direct sunlight often as well as game at max settings connected to an external 4k monitor.

Of course, I’m still excited for the vapor chamber.
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They get hot just being in the sun doing nothing.
 
klasma said:
It’s only lower consumption at the same CPU/GPU performance, but the newer chips also have more processing power. The higher power efficiency is only a means to the end of enabling more processing power without heating up even more. And they constantly add more software functions to make use of that processing power.
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But apart from background things (that do not heat up the phone), facetime is facetime, no matter the iOS version or the iPhone in use.
 
Anaxarxes said:
Facetime calls now have the centerstage where the camera array constantly tracks faces to frame it. That's CPU constantly working.
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Not on iPhone 15.
About the second argument, I doubt that's the cause of the overheating.
 
Dr McKay said:
When I switched online photo storage providers my 15 Pro became too hot to touch while it uploaded the photos, it paused the upload a dozen times or so due to heat.

I received a warning about heat on Saturday when recording a video of my Son playing on the beach, it was a hot day by UK standards, the screen also became so dim it was practically useless.
Click to expand...
Interesting. I don't know that I've ever noticed the temperature of mine while it does uploads/backups to cloud. I'm usually asleep.

As for the beach, I can see that combo might make it get too hot. What is a hot day by UK standards?
 
audiophilosophy said:
I use a K Tomoto silicone bumper on my 14 Pro Max, and I think the fact that the back side is fully open helps to keep it cool. It’s a shame that bumpers aren’t more popular because they really do prevent heat from being trapped on the back side of the phone.
Click to expand...
I think bumpers are one of the best cases out there. It helps to keep the bulkiness down and it helped me to go gradually caseless.
 
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Andy_2341 said:
The pixel 8s didn't and suffered overheating problems. The pixel 9 doesn't have a vapor chamber either. Only the Pixel 9 Pro.
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You’re right it doesn’t but it wouldn’t be on the cheaper models. Always will be on the main flagship devices.

Cooling chamber are a must for flagships these days so hope Apple adds it
 
Le0M said:
But apart from background things (that do not heat up the phone), facetime is facetime, no matter the iOS version or the iPhone in use.
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Aren't they doing video processing for Center Stage, and stuff like improving lighting, audio processing to remove background noise/wind, and such? I think there are "improvements" from OS version to OS version.
 
Andy_2341 said:
Interesting. I don't know that I've ever noticed the temperature of mine while it does uploads/backups to cloud. I'm usually asleep.

As for the beach, I can see that combo might make it get too hot. What is a hot day by UK standards?
Click to expand...
It was sunny and 28C or 82F
 
in thermodynamics there's no free lunch. the excess energy has to go somewhere. it can not dissipate into nothing internally. using glass - which is a pretty darn good insulator on both sides (or plastic) limits the surface where this accumulated heat can be efficiently transferred to the environment. basically it's the edge of the phone, where the metal surfaces can do the job.
yes, it is imperative to collect as much heat as efficient as possible from the hotspots and spread it apart as widely as possible, but at the end of the day that energy has to go somewhere. there are no miracles. if you try to dump it into the other components, you'll just show down the process.
and using inductive charging just makes everything worse.
 
People, better cooling means the whole phone get hotter because the heat is spread from chips to the body. It will not make the phone cooler but will help with sustain performance. If you want the phone to be cooler then it should produce less heat in the first place. Meaning limit peak performance, more efficient software and hardware.
 
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