What happens if you use an iPhone below 0C?

[lordofthereef]

Wow. I have never seen that error and it rgularly gets colder than that here in the winter (although not this winter so far). Sometimes I am outside for 40_ minutes at a time too. Perhaps the core of the phone wasn;t able to cool down to that point.

 

[garbeth]

I work in northern Canada a lot and regularly (in the winter months) use my phone in temperatures down as low as minus 40 degrees Celsius. I just keep it in a pocket inside my jacket whenever it's not in use. Never had a problem.

 

[iKrl]

I used it at -4˚C/25˚F and it turned off, it still had ~65% battery and it started to show the "no battery" sign. When I got on the bus I managed to turn it back on, I though it was very weird, but now I realize why it did that.

 

[MVallee]

I live in Canada and have never had any issues with my phone not working in the cold. It was -24C yesterday and I had my phone out with me. When its that cold though I'm not outside for long (usually just running between my car and buildings). I also keep my iPhone in my inside jacket pocket so its pretty warm from my body heat already.

 

[SHirsch999]

I live in Canada and have never had any issues with my phone not working in the cold. It was -24C yesterday and I had my phone out with me. When its that cold though I'm not outside for long (usually just running between my car and buildings). I also keep my iPhone in my inside jacket pocket so its pretty warm from my body heat already.

I had the phone in an outside jacket pocket, so I am guessing it got pretty close to the ambient temperature. When I got home, the rubberized surface of the case became hard and it was difficult to press the buttons. I don't know if this would make a difference either, but I go out most mornings at 5am for my walks and the phone had not been in use for hours. The battery likely cooled down and was at room temperature when I left for my walk, and the phone was not used at all while on the walk, except for the GPS/walking app. Even the screen goes dark after a few moments.

 

[mrsir2009]

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; CPU iPhone OS 5_0_1 like Mac OS X) AppleWebKit/534.46 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.1 Mobile/9A406 Safari/7534.48.3)

Does the iPhone have a thermostat in it, like macs do?

 

[0007776]

Wow. Kinda weird that this thread comes up today, as I kinda made the mistake of bringing my phone with me on my morning walk like I do every day. However, today was COLD!!! Only 11 F. I use the GPS with a walking app to chart my walks every morning, and just carried it with me today as I do every day. When I got home (after 72 minutes and some seconds), the phone turned on for a moment, then shut down. After not going back on 10 minutes later, I did a hard reset. The apple logo came up, then it shut down again, but only after looking like the battery had completely discharged (empty battery with only a thin red line). I put it on the charger, and then it acted like normal. It showed the actual charge at the moment (65%), and has been working normally since. So, that's my experience, and I will make sure not to repeat it. I had been out before when it was cold, but this is the first time the temp was below 30F. Nice mild winter so far here in NJ.

Not sure what's with your phone, I saw that most people were not having trouble and I wanted to go for a walk so I took my phone with me on a half hour walk in -28C, I think about -18.4 F according to the conversion widget I have, and the only thing I had running was a GPS app to track how far I was walking. The screen was a little sluggish, but besides that there were no noticable problems.

 

[kdarling]

Got to -14.1C when it went asleep, I woke it, and played another movie - it's working just fine. The LCD is getting a *tiny bit* sluggish, it's hardly perceptible compared to other displays I've see in the cold. That said, works just fine.

First, thank you for your willingness to experiment!

So you kept it going the whole time? If so, that would keep it warmer and prevent the LCD from starting to freeze as well.

 

[shikari89]

I took mine snowboarding today. It was 3F outside with 30mph wind, so really effing cold. The only thing I ever notice when using my idevices in the cold is LCD blur. I'm sure its not good to use them in these conditions though.

 

[Big-TDI-Guy]

First, thank you for your willingness to experiment!

So you kept it going the whole time? If so, that would keep it warmer and prevent the LCD from starting to freeze as well.

First test I ran was outside my window - and I had a thermocouple affixed to the side facing my window (the warmer side). I ran 30 minutes with video playing, and another 15 with it sleeping, woke the device, and another 15 minutes worth of video. Due to the fact this thing is glass and metal - it will not keep the insides warm like a phone with a plastic shell. (phone was naked, btw)

Second test, I put it into a -40C chamber, but I did not have a thermocouple that time. (was too busy) After about 30 minutes, I pulled it from a chamber, put it inside a plastic bag (to prevent condensation) and woke the device. That time, the LCD was VERY slow to respond, but it did work.

That help?