iPhone 17 Pro Max overheating during charging and call with AirPods Pro 2

M4R10_ wrote:

I’ve got the iphone 17 pro max and i was charging for the 1st time. I was in a call using my airpods pro 2 and i have like 5 apps open and it shows me a message that says that its stop charging because the heat. So don’t understand why. Isn't it supposed to have a part that helps it release heat?

[Re-Titled by Moderator]

Original Title: iPhone 17 pro max (Heating while charging when was in a call with my airpods 2 pro)

A combination of factors here, none of which are actually overheating. First, when you get a new phone, it takes a few days to index the millions up millions of bytes of data, all while you are using the phone.

More importantly, the message you saw on the phone is NOT overheating. This is a new feature which was introduced last year, when you use a fast charger (20w or higher), your iPhone will charge up to 80% pretty quickly, then display a message, charging is on hold until your phone cools down. This is completely normal and we ALL get this message on the newer phones. It does NOT mean your phone has an issue. It's completely normal.

Were you charging wirelessly? During wireless charging of an iPhone, a significant portion of the energy is converted into heat rather than being stored in the battery, making wireless charging less efficient than wired charging.

Wireless charging generally wastes around 35-40% of the energy as heat compared to wired charging. In practical terms, wired charging showed a total energy loss of about 35.9% (as heat and inefficiency), while wireless charging consumed up to 36-75% more energy overall for the same charge, most of which is dissipated as heat. Therefore, between 35% and 45% (and in some cases, even higher depending on charger quality and use conditions) of input energy may be lost as heat during wireless charging.

So, if you took your iPhone off the wireless charger and went to a phone call you might experience a heat warning. The cellular modem itself may produce a lot of heat, especially indoors, because it has to increase it’s signal strength to connect to the tower. Combine the charging, cellphone usage, and perhaps high screen brightness and you’ve got a near perfect storm for overheating.

ShaHaniC wrote:

My iphone 17pro max is super hot while charging too, with no app running. From your info, you mean it is normal to be super hot while charging.

No, it's not normal to be super hot. But it is normal to be warm when charging, especially if fast charging. But also be advised, that iPhone has very smart thermal protection built in. If a phone is actually overheating (different from the charge pause during charging) an iPhone will display a thermometer on the screen and tell you, the phone cannot be used until it cools down. If you're not seeing this, the phone is very unlikely overheating.

If you feel your iPhone is super hot, you should take it to your Apple Store Genius Bar and let Apple test it for you.

Unfortunately I don’t think you understood the marketing. The vapor chamber is designed to transfer heat from critical components such as the CPU’s, GPU’s, memory module, cameras and battery to the aluminum outer shell. This gives your iphone better performance, longer battery life and less noise in your photos.

You may also want to look at your battery usage and see what apps are using your battery and thereby generating the heat. You may have apps that need updating or have a bug, causing them to run in the background.

Aluminum is about 150% more efficient than glass of conducting heat. Heat is intended to be transferred from the chips and charging circuitry to the aluminum frame. Fast charging produces much more heat than normal slow charging. It all sounds very normal to me.

Your 17 Pro Max is made of aluminum, unlike your previous model pro max’s that were titanium and or stainless steel. The later two materials conduct heat poorly when compared to aluminum. They also did not contain a vapor chamber. Vapor chambers use an evaporation process to cool critical components and transfer heat to the exterior case. This results in improved display brightness, faster more reliable performance, longer battery life on a day to day basis and overall. You’re experiencing exactly what the new iPhone pro models were designed to do, heat the exterior and not the interior.

In regard to battery charging, you could feed 1000 watts into the device and it will still only draw the maximum wattage it can draw, about 35 to 40 watts.

Everything sounds normal to me. I’ve a 17 Pro Max and it gets warmer than my 16 Pro Max, but my battery performance is greatly increased. I just got back from an hour of photography with my wife. Her year old 16 PM is at 74% battery capacity and I’m at 93%. This was with full screen brightness (I’m in Florida).

Bottom line, 17 PM will run warmer. That’s normal and either return it for another 17 PM or maybe an iPhone Air. Yes, they will be cooler, except around the camera and the SOC. Apple should have 16 PM refurbished soon or purchase a new 16 PM ASAP, while a few merchants have remaining stock.

I have had my iPhone 17 Pro Max since 09/25/2025. It is done updating. So that is not the issue here.

Example of overheating issue: The phone is charged at 97% and not on the charger. I’m browsing the Amazon app only and no other apps are open in the background. I have my new AirPod Pro 3’s on with noise cancellation on but not on a call. The back of the phone and the right side (two button side) heats up to point it’s almost untouchable. The battery went from 97% to 80% in less than 30 minutes. I closed the Amazon app, removed the AirPods and rebooted the phone. It cooled down however once I put the AirPods back in my ears, with noise cancellation on and with no active call, the phone started to heat up again.

This is clearly an issue. Hopefully an update will come out soon to address. There are too many threads and complaints regarding this.

Same with my brand new 17 Pro Max. Except I was listening to music indoors via a Bose Soundlink that was bluetooth paired. The phone got almost burning hot and it simply kept staying really hot. It was just sitting on the dining room table next to me. This went on for a good 30 minutes. I closed up all the apps... waited, still hot... so then I force turned it off and rebooted it. Then I didn't reconnect the Bose and the heat eventually cooled to the touch. This was the entire back (especially the center part radiating outward but not so much the edges). But this NEVER happened (or anything like it) on my 16 Pro Max (same Bose portable device used). I am not sure if this is a software issue but since my phone is 5 days old, I am definitely going to swap it out. I don't want to take any chances and get stuck with a phone with dysfunctional cooling.

I went to my phone provider, brought the phone and I even one of my chargers to do a "live" test. I didn't bring the one with 100 watts 'cause I fear they would blame it on it being "too powerful"(and be responsible for the overheating) and the guy commented something about the 35 watts charger that is "meant for Ipads" (no idea if they actually know what they're talking about but I brushed that "argument" off right away).

Anyway, told them I got the same issue with both chargers, and that I got the overheating message during data transfer as well Day One (some of their colleague even said this was "normal" - yet I never experienced this with past Iphone Prox Max... No idea where they got this from).

The staff member then did some reset (the one that doesn't erase your data) and while it was charging, the phone still got pretty hot (just like at home), despite them trying to make it look like it was acceptable. The colleague brought up that many people had this heating issue since IOS 26... There are not Apple employees so they couldn't tell if a future update could fix it.

Speaking of which, the 26.0.1 update I did last night also made my phone overheat in the process... and didn't fix the issue afterwards. Long story short : they told me to wait 48 hours and if it doesn't get any better, come back and send it to "repair" which is what I didn't like about their solution. They won't replace it with a new phone and would only land me some Iphone SE in the meantime (don't even know what it is but I guess some burner phone version from Apple) while mine is getting "repaired" (whatever that means)...

Not sure what to do....Clearly disappointed and I regretted having sold my 16 Pro Max that didn't have any overheat issues. I guess this is my lesson.

Ive had my new 17 Pro for a little over a week and I couldnt be more annoyed with the heat issue. Gets hot to the touch constantly and if wireless charging in my Tesla I always get the message “charging will resume when Iphone returns to normal temperature.” And it will be HOT to the touch. I didnt have this issue with my 15 pro. And for context this is while doing nothing on the phone or running any apps in the background. And its not because it has reached 80% charge as some have implied could be the case. It can be at any random charge % and stop due to temp.

It could be possible that even after a week there is some “indexing” going on in the background? Who knows.

And to all those that respond with “the vapor chamber isnt meant to address that”, thats just dumb. Why even advertise the heat distribution tech if it provides no noticeable positive difference.

I got the iPhone 17 pro yesterday.. and from the moment I got it, it’s been “overheating” every charge. I say “overheating” because the phone itself is very hot - not warm, battery-melting hot. I have been constantly using the phone since I got it but I’m very surprised by this heat.

One thing throwing me off is the usual “this unit will pause charging until temp returns to normal” hasn’t popped up. That’s what usually happens with my old phone.

Wondering if I should bring it to an apple store for an exchange… or wait till something fries to utilize my AppleCare.

Same here and I really hope an upcoming update will fix it soon.

I charged my iphone twice since I got my hands on it last week : twice overheating between 40-80% charge. The phone got the overheating warning during data transfer from my Iphone 16 Pro Max to current device, as well (no case used whatsoever).

I never got this issue with previous Iphones Pro Max either. I also noticed the Iphone gets easily warm while simply listening to the music outside (and no other apps running in the back). The weather is not even warm anymore. If not fixed, it's gonna be problematic next summer.

On top of that, IOS 26 is not as smooth as advertised : I sometimes get lags while shifting app pages on the home screen. Pretty disappointed with Iphone 17 Pro Max so far. Iphone 16 Pro Max was a seamless experience.

Hey there,

I’ve been noticing overheating with my iPhone 17 Pro Max as well, which I find surprising given the phone’s enhanced heat dissipation features. I’m not using any apps while charging, so it seems odd that it’s getting this hot. Thinking if it would be worth having my unit exchanged?

Thanks for any advice!

skimmiks wrote:

I got the iPhone 17 pro yesterday.. and from the moment I got it, it’s been “overheating” every charge. I say “overheating” because the phone itself is very hot - not warm, battery-melting hot. I have been constantly using the phone since I got it but I’m very surprised by this heat.

One thing throwing me off is the usual “this unit will pause charging until temp returns to normal” hasn’t popped up. That’s what usually happens with my old phone.

Wondering if I should bring it to an apple store for an exchange… or wait till something fries to utilize my AppleCare.

Did you read what I posted before you posted? I explained the notification during charing, which is normal.

Same here, I've upgraded from iPhone 14 Pro Max due to getting hot while being on a call. It wouldn't do that when I got it for the first year or so. This is my first week with the 17 Pro Max, going on day 6, and it's been getting crazy hot while I'm on call. might return and get the 16 Pro Max, not sure yet.