New iPad overheating?

I got my All New Ipad on 16th. I restored with Icloud. so far I have not see any of these issues. I don't use the brighhness at 100%. At night when I am reading a book or navigating the internet I have the lights off and have the auto brightness on. Still,I have also used with at maybe 65% brightness in other ocassions and dont see the heating.

One thing that I did do though was that I never charged the IPAD when I first bought it. I let it drain all the way and then recharged completely overnight.

I agree with Zach. There might be a few that might be acting differently.

I'm on my second iPad 3 - The first one was a preorder, the second was from an Apple campus store. It's possible I got unlucky twice. I'm holding out to see if the "two day fix" helps, if not I'll call Apple Care, and if none of that helps I guess I'll exchange it again.

A question for you: Did you own an iPad 2 before this? The heat issue is very noticeable to me since I have the always-cool iPad 2 to compare it to. I wonder if that is impacting some of these responses. What brightness do you run yours at?

I keep mine at around 50% at night and up to 80% during the day.

As a side note I can confirm as far as I know my iPad has no Wifi issues. I saw a YouTube video with a iPad 3 death grip but I can't replicate it thankfully.

I just like to heat things up! LOL!

Look guys...

I am just curious about what others have to say about their iPads. I have tried different techniques, to reduce the heat issues, and lowering the brightness works. My problem is that it shouldn't get so hot, at 100% brightness, since I never had a problem like that with my iPad 2. My problem has already been fixed, but am interested in the further discussion of this forum.

I just brought my original iPad 3 32GB Verizon back to the Apple Store. I had them hold it before use and then used it for 30 minutes. They then confirmed that it was definitely hotter than it should have been. They switched it out for a replacement.

Weird thing is, the replacement gets even hotter than the original. I have to admit, I am not using it in a extremely cool place like the apple store, but I am using it in the Northern US, which should keep it within operating temps.

With this new one, it gets hot just sitting at the home screen. It seems worse than the one I had previously. I am going to give it a few days and bring it back if this one also does not cool down.

I also put this one into a case and have tried with auto brightness OFF and brightness at both 75% and 100%.

Thats what ipad users get. They buy the new apple shiny slab thinking its the best and they have no clue of all the flaws that it has. 😝 My original ipad has never gotten warm and i quite happy with it. So it seems to me that apple is working backwards. I cannot beileve that it took this long to put in a retina display and 4g capabilitlities.

After reviewing this entire thread and switching my 1st model because of the heat, I realize that the problem was the fact that on the new iPad the default location settings is on for all applications that require gps positioning. Once I replaced my initial new iPad, I disabled the location settings for safari and any other app that I didn't need the location feature turned to and my iPad is now just tepid. When I initially purchased the new iPad I didn't realize this and I returned it for different model. I started to have the same heating issue until I disabled location settings for safari, drained my battery completely and charged this bad boy up again. Now everything is perfect and I have my screen on 100% brightness. I am operating with a 64 gb 4g Verizon tablet. Trust me it's the location settings for safari that is causing the heat. Turn it off and you will be good to go.

zachberry wrote:

I'm on my second iPad 3 - The first one was a preorder, the second was from an Apple campus store. It's possible I got unlucky twice. I'm holding out to see if the "two day fix" helps, if not I'll call Apple Care, and if none of that helps I guess I'll exchange it again.

A question for you: Did you own an iPad 2 before this? The heat issue is very noticeable to me since I have the always-cool iPad 2 to compare it to. I wonder if that is impacting some of these responses. What brightness do you run yours at?

I keep mine at around 50% at night and up to 80% during the day.

As a side note I can confirm as far as I know my iPad has no Wifi issues. I saw a YouTube video with a iPad 3 death grip but I can't replicate it thankfully.

Yes, I owned iPad 2 (now sold), but we still have another iPad 2 in our household, so I can compare them side by side. My new iPad does not run hot. Period. It may be slightly warmer, which I don't find surprising, given the battery is twice the size of iPad 2. And the screen has to draw waaaay more current too. My Plasma tv screen heats my family room in the winter (I live in Florida). Unless your iPad is too hot to hold in your hand, I probably wouldn't be too concerned about it. Now, I do have my iPad in a case, but that case has the left side of iPad exposed when open, so I can always feel if there is unusual warmth radiating from it. There has been none. I'm also on my original charge which came with iPad out of the box. I will likely run out of juice this evening and then will charge overnight while I'm sleeping. In terms of brightness, I'm probably in the 50% - 75% range. I find the screen simply too bright all the way up.

Why is nobody asking the most obvious question, how much will this ovrheating shorten the lifespan of the ipad 3 battery?

In the manual Apple state that the biggest battery killer is 'heat'. They say don't leavd your ipad in direct sunlight, etc, etc.

Well what happens if your battery is heating up a lot as part of everyday use? Do you find that 18 months (or less) down the line you need a new battery installed?

Is this going to be the original ipod battery issue all over again??????

Will Apple accept any responbility if that turns out to be the case?

Apple,dont hide behind excuses and let us know whats happenning?Why this new ipad is overheating?please fix it,apple has always been the best top of the line products,but now this?come on?what's happenning?just tell us if you gonna come up with an ipad like this new ipad but with no overheating problems?

Thanks for the reply. I think the difference here may be in the subjective realm of what is hot vs what is warm. I wouldn't say my iPad runs hot typically. It was hot during a stress test on http://primarycoffee.com/hotpad/ at 100% brightness - I measured 107 F with my inadequate testing solution. That of course was trying to get it as hot as I could and was not normal operating conditions. Otherwise I would say it runs "warm", which I agree makes sense for all the reasons you stated.

My concern isn't about the it blowing up, melting or frying me. My MBP gets hotter and I use it often. My concern is, when running non-intensive apps like Safari, is your iPad generally cooler (although not necessarly as cold as the iPad 2) than mine, or are we talking about the same thing?

With the smart cover it's not bad, but you can still feel the heat. :/

And I'm actually a few hours away from you in Orlando.

After trying all the things I could and calling Apple care, I took mine in to a store and exchanged it. I set it up as a new ipad, then after downloading a handful of apps and trying to stream TV I am over 100 degree in a matter of minutes. By the way, location services have nothing to do with it. I have always had them turned off, and it makes no difference. At this point I would say anyone claiming their ipad does not get rather warm at a high brightness and playing a game or streaming video is simply ignoring it. Mine is 105 degrees right now with nothing but TV streaming running – no location services, no push, no games. It is a great product and I would love to keep it, but I don’t see how. If you don’t stream video, don’t play games, keep the brightness low, and don’t use it while plugged in then the heat will not be an issue. Or you could be like the genius at Cnet and say it does not get hot provided you only use it 15 minutes at time and then let it cool down for 20 minutes before using it again.

Hi,

I saw that some people think that there was a bad batch of iPads,

I was wondering if that btach wasonly in america as i can not see any reports of the new ipad overheating in england,

If anyone has experienced this problem in the uk can they please reply to thins comment,

Many Thanks

Hi Beers - et al,

I have followed this thread right from the start and noted your comments. I have not been lucky enough to own an ipad 1 or 2, but have waited expectantly for the Ipad 3 - pennies all saved up - SO excited. I didn't want to pre-order - wanted to check the feedback after the first release before I handed over my 'wad'. I just wanted to say THANK YOU to you all . I will not be purchasing the New Ipad 😟

Instead, having sourced a shop that still has the Ipad 2 stock and this money now burning a hole in my pocket, I am off to buy the Ipad 2.

For me the Ipad is an indulgence, an extravagance that our family don't really need but something that we really WANT! I just wanted to say - to all of the people who are having heat problems - TAKE IT BACK !!

I have used Macs only at home since 1993 and LOVE Apple, and I've read posts here by many others who want to remain loyal, but, guys, THINK. If this product were made by anybody else, you would take it back without hesitation - a handheld product that is TOO HOT TO HOLD ? It would be a ludicrous notion to do anything else.

Standards will go down if people start to accept faulty produce - and at such enormous cost! Our beloved Apple will be eaten away by grubs if we do not accept anything but the best.

Take it back?

I already said I resolved the problem, by turning down the brightness a bit. I did try to return it, but they stead it was a software issue, and that I had to reset the device. Don't know if resetting did anything, but it did seem to work better. Placebo? Lol! Also, the major factor in the overheating issue, it the screens brightness. Again, IMO, I like to have my brightness at it's max, and feel that everything just pops, and looks sharp. Although, many say I'm crazy to have it that bright... Look, if I am in my house, with my lights off or dimmed, then of course I turn the brightness down. But, during the day, when most people are using it, out and about, then I like my brightness at 100%. Again, just my opinion.

I love my new iPad, and am not telling people to not buy one. The only people who annoyed me, were people who would ask if they should buy one, when the only people on these forums, should be owners who are looking for help. That is what this community forum is all about. To get help from others, when Apple cannot help anyone further...

Just seems like a joke to me, that the majority of iPads are working quite well, then we get people asking "Should I buy one?" I would say, Yes! Buy One! If you experience any issues, then come check out the forums for added assistance. I'm not trying to be harsh, since this problem has gone viral, so I'll back off a bit now. At the beginning of this thred, it was authentic iPad owners, with this specific problem. Now, when people ask if they should buy one, it just gets to me... It makes no sense that people come to help forums, before they experience the new iPad for themselves. That's all.

So, to anyone asking if they should buy a new iPad, I say absolutely, Yes! If you experience a problem, then come back here and share your thoughts...

This is an update to my original post a week ago. I just returned my iPad3 to the local Apple Store, and purchased a used iPad2.

The iPad3 that I had was a 32gb wifi only (black). It was Fed-Ex'd as a pre-order and arrived on Mar-16.

Upon opening the box, I immediately plugged the iPad3 into my Macbook-Pro in order to sync with iTunes and restore from my iPad1's backup (which had been done that morning). Once the iPad3 was sync'd from the backup, I started configuring the "settings" app, mail app, calendar, contacts, etc. That's when I first noticed it was *very* warm. I figured it had to do with the charging so I left it to charge until it got to 100% (charge was initially 85% out of the box). About an hour later I unplugged it and left it to sit for a few hours while I tended to other work.

....Later that night I turned it on at 100% charge unplugged and cold, and brightness at 30%, and went into Safari to browse google-news and light static web pages; within 15 minutes I noticed the same heating problem, it was warm. Within 30 minutes it was *very* warm again. At that point I knew there was a problem since it was that warm and not even plugged in. Note, this is before I knew anyhing about the causes: bigger battery, larger processor, higher power consumption, etc. I couldn't believe the iPad was getting this hot, so I looked online and found other reports until finding this thread, which I've been following since last week.

I have tried all of the recommended troubleshoots here. Brightness at 100% definitely made the iPad hotter, pushing it out of the uncomfortably warm border and into the unacceptable *farily hot* category (for me). The one semi-solution that worked for me was to drain the iPad3 battery to 0%, and recharge it completely. I did this 3 TIMES, which literally took all day for each of the 3 sessions! (4 to 5 hours to power down with netflix - I played 1978 Superman1 over and over at 100% brightness, 5 hours to recharge). During each power-down session with netflix, I would feel the back of the iPad for warmth every 1 hour so. The first time it powered down it was HOT. The second time it was borderline hot, borderline very warm. The third time it was very warm. And that was the last recharge I gave it.

After that 3rd charge-down, the iPad was definitely not as hot as it had been. But running Safari, it was still very warm within 30 minutes. I may not have minded the heat so much personally, as I tended to only use my iPad1 for about 30 minutes at a time. But the fact that the heat is concentrated only in that left-corner, and it was giving me sweaty hands within 20 minutes of mild surfing in Safari, made me very uncomfortable with this purchase. I know a lot of people are defending the iPad3's heat-controversy making bloated statements such as:

--"If you want that much processing power and advanced graphics, of course it's going to cause that much heat".

--"The Macbook laptops get much hotter than the iPad3, you have nothing to complain about".

--"The new iPad delivers a stunning Retina display, A5X chip, support for 4G LTE plus 10 hours of battery life, all while operating well within our thermal specifications. If customers have any concerns they should contact AppleCare."

I contacted AppleCare 3 days ago, their response was..."duhhh...what heating issue?" My own take on these dismissals is this: the iPad is a hand-held device. Have you even used a mouse or keyboard that overheats? No, because people would balk at the idea and get one that doesn't overheat. You're not constantly touching the macbook with your hands, though it may fry your legs, you can always place something in between. But with the iPad3, if you place that over-heating sucker into a case, first you're trapping the heat inside the device, and who knows whether the engineers built the iPad3 to tolerate an environment where that-much-heat is not allowed to dissipate. And second, the case is eventually going to heat up to, and probably on that one lower-left side, which is annoying as heck. Who wants a mouse, keyboard, calculator, iPod, Gameboy, or any other hand-held electronic device that overheats in your hand after 15 mintes of light use? Apple has taken the PC approach of cramming in really revolutionary hi-tech into a form factor that is not ready for it. Only a PC-nut will geek out over the spec's and disqualify the usability (or heat output) of the device. That is not Apple's modus operandi, at least, it didn't seem to be when Jobs was running the place.

A couple other issues really pushed me over the edge in deciding to return it. FIRST was the statement of complete denial issued by Apple PR’s Trudy Muller in response to the verified reports of the iPad3's heat issue. SECOND was the long-long time it takes to charge the iPad3, 5 hours! (FYI - I was consistently getting 20% charge per hour). I was not at all expecting it to take almost all day to charge it. Sometimes when using my iPad1, I had needed to go somewhere with it when it was on a low charge. I could plug it and charge 20% within maybe 20 minutes, and that was fine. But with the iPad3, if I need a quick charge, I won't get it. THIRD was the slight increase in weight of the iPad3 and the fact that it doesn't fit iPad2 snap-cases. Again, here you see Apple compromising form/usability for function, ie, the engineers getting their way.

IMHO, the "new" iPad is really the "iPad3 Beta". As a long-time Apple-user, I have seen a consistent trend where the first generation of their products has been messy and had something screwed up about it. My first iMac had a faulty power supply. My first Macbook Air had a faulty display. My first Macbook had a faulty keyboard. I chuckle when I think of these issues. But in each one, Apple gingerly took care of the issue. I am confident that the REAL iPad3 next year will be A) more power efficient, thus requiring a smaller battery which means B) it will be smaller and lighter, maybe the same shape as the iPad2 and even lighter, and C) quicker to charge and D) much less hot to handle, maybe being as "normal" as the iPad2. I admit, I was so satisfied with the original iPad, and envious of the iPad2 owners, that I imagined to myself that Apple maybe had gotten over their first-edition jitters. Fortunately, the iPad2 is everything the iPad1 was but better and without any visible drawbacks. I ended up getting a used one this week and am quite happy using it for at least the next year while Apple works the bugs out of its iPad3. The iPad3 is Apple's flagship product, I'm very saddened to see the slippup in its usability.

iPad3 vs iPad2 - The iPad3 display, OMG truly, it makes every other screen look grainy and blurry by comparison. Unfortunately it was like opening Pandora's box, because my laptop display and external monitors now look blurry and old. Major sadness here. And the iPad2 display, I never saw a problem with it or the iPad1 display, but now they also look blurry and old, and I wonder to myself how I put up with such a blur for such a long time?? (Much like wondering how we put up with CRT Displays for so long before flat-panels and LED displays). Plus the iPad3 has voice dictation which worked really well for me. However, the iPad3 is NOT FASTER than the iPad2. In my side-by-side comparisons, they were the same speed for: App-Launching (Zite, Mail, Safari, etc), Safari Web Browsing, return-to-Home Screen, App-Switching-Swipe-Gestures, etc. EXACTLY the same speed. I understand that the iPad3 has 2x the memory as the iPad2, but I think that higher-memory only comes into use when you're playing the new hi-res action games like Real Racing 2. The iPad3 and the iPad2 last ABOUT the same time. Ie, they both drain the battery at 10% per hour on light web surfing at 30% brightness. Now here are the iPad 2's advantages: it's lighter in weight (I easily feel the difference and can appreciate anything that's lighter). iPad2 can charge it's battery in about 2 hours, compared to the 5 hours that the iPad3 took to charge. Used iPad2's are going for about half the price, so you save a couple hundred bucks which you can use to purchase the REAL iPad3 next year (I even got the year-old apple-smart-cover along with the used iPad2). And, I know this is petty but it's a real concern, the iPad2 doesn't make all your other computer displays look like crap. Heck, the iPad3 makes paper books look like crap. I just don't want to deal with that right now. iPhone hi-res I can appreciate because it's such a small screen, the hi-res is very useful. But I don't need hi-res on the iPad, or on my computer displays, and I don't appreciate that the iPad3 made everything else I own look so blurry. heh.

Just one final interesting note - when I returned my iPad3 to the Apple store I was met with disdain upon stating I had the return. I walked in, found one apple-guy, told him I had the iPad3 to return, and he told me he couldn't do returns, that I would have to find one of the sales people. I asked him how can I tell who is a sales-person, and he said I should just walk up to people and ask around. Really? Okay, so I did. It took 4 apple-guys, an apple-girl, and one more apple-guy before I found someone who would process the return. The guy literally openned the box, scanned it, and started walking away without saying more than "what's your email?" and "it should take 2 weeks to get the refund". I had to call out to him as he was walking away to ask him if I could get a receipt, you know, so that I don't let him walk away with $750 of equipment (iPad 32gb plus leather cover). He gave me this look and said it would be emailed, but I insisted on having a print-out, so he obliged without another word spoken. I only mention this last little bit in contrast to the excitement, cheers, and high-fives people get when they were buying the iPad3. Returns definitely show you the bi-polar side of Apple Customer service. I shudder to think the reaction if I had tried to exchange the unit after that 14-day-return-window had expired, I'm almost certain people are going to be told that their overheating iPad3's are "operating well within our thermal specifications".

As of now I'm ending my subscription to this thread. I hope NOT to you all in the forums next year when I get the iPad 4.

Goodluck All!