Iphone 4S getting hot?

Yesterday, I made a 26 minute call and at the end of it my white iPhone 4S was really, really hot on the back, around the SIM card area. Kinda scary. Never I got anything like this on iPhone 4 or 3GS...

i havent dont this before but i am going to now why dont u turn of siri and bluetooth if it is on and also turn of notification like stocks n just keep the weather on the slide down menu thing let everybody know if it helps becuhz im pritty sure i wont come to this page hope i helped and i have the white iphone 4s on orange

I think it is more intermittent than this suggests. I have siri and bluetooth on all the time as well as WiFi. Generally, I have no problems. Once in a blue moon my 4s goes into extreme power drain mode which in-turn heats up the phone. If we could do this programatically, perhaps we could sell it as a hand-warmer app. Fortunately this happens very rarely for me. Two or three times so far. I got my 4s on the first day they were available.

I've noticed something really weird: when using Instagram, specially when taking a picture, my 4S gets very very hot in a fast pace. Wow. I've tried to find something about this on the web, but I couldn't.

Hi im iphone 4s user too..i think is the 4s pronlem..i have iphone 4 and 3gs and also will not hot..and i find out that iphone 4s will be hot in three are :

1) sim card area ( if the area of 3g service is not good).

2) camera ( when record more than 3 min )

3) when call is the worst !!!

U all imagine i kill all the apps and put the handphone on my pocket and it will suddently feel hot, and i have to take out from my pocket !!!

I figured it out! It's a design issue!

Take the back off of the iPhone 4S and see how long it lasts and how it doesn't heat up like crazy. All that heat continues to build up because of the insulating back. That's what causes the fast battery drain.

Now all I need is an all metal back...

Hi guys I am also having the same problem of my 4s getting hot on the back as well as on the sides specially sim side.I brought the phone in Austalia and i currently reside in India.When i called up the customer support they said i have to take my phone back to Australia for any repair or replacement issue.Now am really worried because i am going to U.S next month & i cannot resolve my issue anywhere else other than Australia.Sice the Apple Guys have left me in a condition where u guys can only help .What r the possible solutions?If i restore through i tunes will it be okay.As i told you i cannot take it to a Apple store anywhere else other than AUS.So guys Help me out..

This will the 2nd time it has happened to me as well. It must be the 3G signal or an app that not close well. My trick is to plug it into computer and reboot a couple times you can even use a charger or car charger. Reboot a couple times then respring. Hopefully this help you guys.

Mine too. It gets very hot and the battery life plummets. Some days I only get 4 hrs before it dies. I have to put it on airplane mode so it will last long enough in case I need to make a call. What kind of phone needs to do that? I turn everything off - location services, wifi, bluetooth - the works - so I know it's not those. I have my email set to fetch rather than push. I'm restoring now to see if this helps. Anyone have any ideas on what causes it?

My 4s was getting really hot and the battery life was awful. I decided that something must be running in the background, so set out to have a rummage! If you go into Settings - General - About, then scroll to the bottom and you will find Diagnostics & Usage. This is set to Automatically Send, so I changed it to Don't Send and I now have a cold phone with good battery life. It still warms up a bit, though, if I make a long phone call!

Hope this works for you!

I have a new replacement iphone 4 (model MC603X Ver 5.1 ) sometimes if i have LOCATION services on the phone will suddenly get hot while it is in my pocket or in my hand.

It is only since replacement that i am experiencing this sudden "hot pocket" or "hot hand" problems. It generally drops about 20-30 % power within 5 minutes and becomes very uncomfortable to hold/carry.

"send diagnostics" has always been OFF.

im on sprint also and my iphone 4s 16gb white is getting very hot and ive seen people said do a hard reboot but im afaird ill loosing all my stuff if i do.... suggestions?

Yeah So this is my first Iphone (4S). I have been an avid Droid user for years and always had great luck with them (battery, OS, ect). So I decided a week ago March 25th 2012 to take the plunge and get an iphone family plan with my significant other, assuming "what the heck, everyone says the battery life is the best thing about the phone". From day one this phone has been dog**** battery-wise. Not only is my phone affected, but my girlfriend's same model phone is the same exact way. So let me get to it already:

I consider myself a tech-savy person and thought hey I can figure this out, man have I been wrong, along with 98% of 4S users. So the phone came stocked with iOS 5.0.1 I think. After suffering bad battery life for two days, with realistic/perfect charging to condition the battery, I assumed it was either a bad battery or iOS issue. I realized there was an update due for iOS 5.1 that noted bugs and fixes for battery issues. I proceeded to DL and Install once I had a full battery charge, while being plugged in. I thought to myself, "this is great, finally!" but to no avail; the battery life was still terrible... No Gain or Loss compared to before. Let me elaborate a bit...

*Stock Phone out of box iOS 5.0.1 (03/26/12)

-Day 1 with 100% charge, everything set to default, wifi off when not in use. I unplug from charger at 515am to get ready for work and lay the phone on my desk downstairs and continue to get ready for work. Leave for work and arrive at 7am, phone is at 88-90% (not even touched yet). By 12pm I leave for luch and I am anywhere between 35-40% on battery with on average 3 websites viewed and maybe, just maybe one phone call made. If I made it home at 4pm without my phone dying I don't remember.

-Day 2 (same exact scenario for the most part)

-Day 3 (same scenario) except this time I was proactive after reading about shutting off all the extra background services, apps, siri, ect, but nothing seemed to help at all! Literally if I saved 1-2% I didnt notice.

*Upgraded to iOS 5.1 (03/29/12)

-Day 4. Discovered update that noted bugs and fixes for battery issues and dove in as soon as my phone was at 100% charge. I thought I was finally free form the grips of this...nope. Everything back to default running on 5.1 I had no gain or loss in battery performance. I figured I would again try disabling all the background services listed before, but nothing would help. Sometimes it would drain a lil faster than other, but for the most part I was losing 10-15% an hour at least with the most minimal of use.

-Day 5. I called Apple and their Sr. Advisor acted suprised, as if she hadnt heard of this issue really 😐, and set me up an appointment with the "Genius Bar". Sooo I wait for that appointment hoping for a new update or patch to resolve this issue so I would'nt have to drive 2hrs to the closest apple store.

-Day 6 and 7 resolve nothing other than reading forums and trying to educate myself on the issue.

-Day 8. (04/02/12) I go to the Apple Store. The "Apple Genius" does a diagnostic scan on my phone and determines the battery and hardware seem healthy, but becomes aware of the giant loss in battery as we sat there for 10mins and it dropped over 10%. He was shocked 😐 and said "this def is not normal". He proceeded with options, such as "I can wipe the phone clean and give you a new battery or I can just give you a brand new phone". I wanted to rule out hardware entirely so opted for the new handset replacement so I could start from scratch. So we moved forward and I went on my way back home with my 2nd iphone 4S with the original 5.0.1 on it. Charge conditioned it and didnt put any apps at all on it or upgrades. I wanted to see what the culprit was. It still was draining after giving it a lil use (10mins of soft web surfing and a 4min phone call). I seemed to be in the same boat again and dissapointed. I was right to feel that way because my battery issue was there exactly the same as before, except I had an empty phone I had to start all over with again...

-Day 9. (04/03/12) Decided to upgrade new handset to 5.1 hoping for the best, assuming it really just needed that bug fix through the upgrade. Pretty much started my work day at 7am with iOS 5.1 on the new handset with no apps or customizations. Battery life still the same. I could not believe it, so again I disabled all the services listed before to see if it would help along with some other troubleshooting I read about over the weekend... Nothing would help. I could not find the culprit! Battery was still draining at an alarming rate.

-Day 10. (TODAY! 04/04/12) Did my usual 7am-4pm workshift. While at work my battery showed signs of no hope once again, but I decided to get over it for a few minutes and finally use the smartphone portion of my purchase and redownloaded my apps one by one and see how the battery reacted; nothing seemed to help or hinder the battery life.

So here I am at 8pm trying to help the cause by giving the steps I have taken. Sorry if I have left out important details, but I am exhausted over it, so feel free to reply with extensive questioning. My only hope is to shed some light for apple and its iphone users. Too many places I have read that people werent doing enough or were doing too much, which annoyed me because I could relate to every single one of the issues and I know you guys can to. So enough from you guys who say try this, try that, stop using the phone so hard, swap it out at apple, upgrade, restore from itunes, restore from scratch, put it in the oven, put it in the freezer, because NONE of that has worked for me on any level as of yet. Same for my girlfriends phone. None of these steps have helped my battery life and I know there are other in the same boat which is deflating.

Currently my iphone 4S is a white 32gb with iOS 5.1 installed.

I am on Sprint and generally have 4-5 bars of service all the time, including 3G.

My serial number is starts with DQGH12V*****

Model MD246LL

Version 5.1 (9B179)

Let's crush this rediculus issue that has gone on for far too long.

Okay, Important realtime update!

-Day 11. I went to sleep last night at 1030pm with my phone unplugged at 93% and just woke up at 515am to grab it at 90% and currently at 6am it is still at 90%, this is huge for me, but actually realistic...

What did I do different? It it basically in tandem with what a few other dudes were saying on here: the 3G.

I looked on Sprint to see my coverage area (work and home) and it looked good, I am even two houses or so down from excellent service. That said, my phones service bars and data service reflect that considering I get pretty quick upload and download speeds.

So to the difference:

Location Services: ON

System Services: OFF (not that this should be a factor because it never helped before)

WIFI: ON

Cellular Data Services (3G): OFFFFF!!!!

-Nothing else dissabled and bam.

So with the culprit pointing to the 3G antenna I am going redirect my focus today, but this is the only positive feedback I have been given in the 10 days I have been hammering away at this phone. Apple needs to put us on their payrolls for this?

With all that said, I have not been able to get any momentum the entire time whatsoever with any troubleshooting tactic until now, with just turning off cellular data (3G). I am even running WIFI and tons of apps to push the phone a lil and it isnt budging battery-wise. Like other have said, this def doesnt "fix" the issue 😠, but it is a slight work around that will set your battery life back to the stone age of good batteries.

Go ahead:

Setting>General>Network>Cellular Data (OFF!)

Now this is redic considering your biggest monthly cellphone plan cost is generally your data, but it seems to me it's better temporarily than to have a totally dead phone. I am pretty sure apple has installed some shotty antennas in some of the handsets that is constantly pinging the network hard and it probably has something to do with iOS 5 being 4G ready... This is EPIC FAILURE for this company I think. I think they know it to, but like the original 4S issue it should get solved, but I am sure the flawless iphone 5 will come out then, since they seem preoccupied by it rather than fixing this issue within 6-7 months. I can only hope they knock off $400 dollars at trade in with this phone for the new one at minimum.

Hit me with any other questions.

Great write up, phonytony! You certainly have the best (worst!) example of the problem i've heard about.

It will be interesting to see if it stays that consistent in terms of root cause and solution. I've had the extreme power consumption problem two or three times since I purchased my 4S on the very first day they were available. I've never found a good explanation for it. My cellular data is on all the time. I go in and out of WiFi throughout the day like most people....home, work and elsewhere. Your Day 11 performance is my normal experience. But on those few problem days, my experience was also like your original issue. You can almost watch the power meter count down.

I do hope Apple gets enough information from us to eventually kill this bug. It is perplexing and a pain in the butt.

Thanks, I only want to get to the bottom of this like everyone else...

Another side note. I decided to turn on cellular data (3G) about 5mins ago at work, since I don't have wifi, to see how'd she hold up. Keep in mind I was at 89% at 7am when I arrived at work. I am now at 81%. I dropped 7% in 5mins with cellular data turned back on. This is def the main issue by far.

Any thoughts?