"Bad thermal design" would not equate to a hot device. If the actual device frame is getting hot, that means that thermal energy is being moved away from the processor effectively, and dissipated across the device.
It's wild how many people in this thread don't actually understand that.
Bad thermal design does not equate to a hot device?!
In every situation?
Even ”great” thermal design can manifest as an overall “hot device” or even the hot “frame” of a third-party iPhone case. Thermal designs work to the best of their abilities — which does not translate to a room temperature or cold phone or device or computer
at all times. Fanless Macbook Airs get warm — even subjectivity hot — and their thermal dissipation designs are state-of-the-art.
It’s not a question of a device never getting even warm, it’s a question of whether the thermal design is engineered well enough that the SoC and other components don’t need to dial back their clock frequencies as often, negatively impacting performance. ICs can get surprisingly hot (relatively) before thermal throttling kicks in. (SSD modules are
notorious for getting boiling hot — which, ironically
negatively impacts the lifespan of the SSD while
also positively impacting the lifespan of the SSD because very high heat helps clear “trapped charges” lingering in cells that remain in “erased spaces.” It begs the question, Is a 1TB iPhone slower than a 512GB [or lower] iPhone?)
People who own iPhone 15 Pros — who have prior experience owning iPhone models — are getting
flamed in here for simply relaying their true observations about their phone getting abnormally “hot.”
The statistics are as yet unclear, but I’ve heard
enough from honest, technically capable people in these and other forums who say that their iPhone 15 Pros are getting unusually hot — even showing the rare “thermometer” icon and message and freezing until the phone cools down enough.
Based on this, I
surmise this a statistically significant issue affecting
many iPhone 15 Pro and iPhone 15 Pro Max users — unlike the violent OIS shaking of one of the camera sensors issue that affected
only a fraction of iPhone 14 users and which was fixed by Apple via a software update.
I find it inexplicable that the most valuable company in human history
seems to have such a conspicuous Quality Assurance issue on its hands. How did so many iPhone 15 Pro and Pro Max models make it through the QA process and out into the supply chain?!
And to everyone who owns an iPhone 15 Pro or iPhone 15 Pro Max that
doesn’t suffer overheating issues:
CONGRATULATIONS!
But there’s no need to get
pedantic and snotty toward iPhone 15 Pro owners who
are experiencing and reporting this issue. Simply unnecessary.
I hope (maybe unrealistically) that there will be a forthcoming Apple iOS update fix to address 1.) iPhone 15 Pro overheating issues — but not one that “tunes down” its max potential performance, and 2.) fixes the lower performance issue of the iPhone 15 Pro Max compared to the higher performing iPhone 15 Pro.
The Pro Max’s performance should be
at least the same as the as the iPhone 15 Pro, but preferably
better.