New iPad overheating?

Just got my new iPad. I'm loving the screen and speed but there's something weird about it. It gets rather warm/hot after 30minutes of usage. It has never happened on my iPad 2.


Do you think it's harmless or .... ?

iPad (3rd generation) Wi-Fi, iOS 5.1

Posted on Mar 16, 2012 9:33 AM

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Posted on May 12, 2012 4:17 PM

The best measure to determine whether the iPad is hot or not doesn't require rocket science. Not much of personal sense of feel. Instead, it's how the battery reacts to the device's heat.


  • According to Apple, the iPads' battery temperature treshold is 32° to 95° F. That’s 0° to 35° C.
  • In the case of iDevices, environmental temperature=operating temperature because of a known fact that in Apple designs, they've stripped out the plastic made protective shield of the battery, thus decreasing the battery's heat resistance.

(In my course of landing with the current 3rd iPad, I was told by an AppleCare consultant that iPads that operate over 34.6°, they qualify for exchanges. no second word)

  • Make sure a full discharge is conducted
  • Fully charge the iPad without using it
  • Remove all iPad cases
  • Use the iPad at normal conditions, probably keep brightness at 75% at most. Now run applications like games that are not retina supported. Then, include games like Real Racing2 HD (a Retina game) in your test.
  • Measure both results using...
  • An infrared thermometer/ thermal scanner to pick the heat numbers from the back of the iPad, especially the lower left corner beside the home button.
  • If heat is proven to be above, especially way above 35celcius. The message is glaring at you; the iPad is producing more heat than what it can take, its a manufacturing defect.
  • Go get an exchange if the heat is indeed over 35 celicius or 95f
1,343 replies

Mar 17, 2012 1:16 PM in response to faatty

My 64 gb wifi ipad3 gets fry an egg hot in the middle/ land lower left side after playing scramble for 10 minutes. No data transfers (did that last night), so no mega processing going on in bkgrnd. I even closed all apps in background. Going to hit a genius bar tomorrow and will post what they say. And I agree with he preliminary conclusions of others that this is a battery hog. Also the device is not in a case.

Mar 17, 2012 1:23 PM in response to barbaroonie

According to the iFixit teardown, the entire right side of the iPad 3, looking at it from the rear, contains the three lithium polymer battery cells. The left side, again looking at it from the back, contains the processor, circuit board, and camera circuitry in a strip compartment about 1-2" wide that extends from the top of the iPad to the bottom. The iPad 3 is basically a battery with a screen attached. I'm not surprised it runs warmer (though I haven't really noticed it on mine and I just charged it for the first time). If it's getting really hot, there may be a problem with the battery management circuitry; take it back to Apple and have them check it out.

Jun 28, 2018 1:39 AM in response to Keith R Thompson

I have a 16 gig white iPad wifi and it's very warm whenever I go to download applications or anything. and when I say very warm I mean hotter than the iPad two it feels as though I left it charging for long period time when I have not

Mar 17, 2012 6:35 PM in response to faatty

It's the screen brightness that is causing the battery to get hot. Turn the brightness down and you'll find the back to return to room temperature, or at least slightly warm. I'm not real happy about this as I like my brightness turned up all of the way.


I saw a Genius today who tried to take temperature readings, but said that there wasn't enough data yet for the iPad to report anything. He basically told me to wait it out a couple of weeks while they get new shipments in and return. He also said that I was the first person to report this in that store, as far as he knows. Being just the second day since its released I'm not surprised. Lastly, he said the next step was to restore the OS with iTunes - although I wouldn't hold out any hope of that making a difference.


Long story short - turn down the brightness while we wait. I'm hoping it's only affecting some iPads, and not all.

Mar 17, 2012 8:46 PM in response to faatty

I have a white 32GB Wifi+4G (At&t) and it is getting mighty toasty in back just from surfing the Internet. Never had this problem with either of my previous iPads. I am anxious to see if other new iPads are NOT having this issue. Then, it would seem a simple exchange would be the solution. I hope the solution is NOT turning down the brightness, because it is sparking and beautiful cranked up!

Holding a warm to hot iPad in your lap while reading a book or watching a movie is a serious defect in my opinion.

It is early so hopefully Apple will address the issue soon.

I am glad I still have my 2.

Mar 17, 2012 9:03 PM in response to faatty

Mine was warmer yesterday when I loaded it up with everything from my iPad 2 but today it has significantly cooled off. It's has to be the larger battery and the processer working at greater speeds yesterday. You know the battery has to be bigger and it's faster because you can watch the battery drain countdown.:) it holds up well though. Today I would say there no issue, after the initial setup workout.

Mar 17, 2012 9:20 PM in response to faatty

I got a 16 gbwifi only and it's getting really hot on the lower left opposite the speaker grill. First i ithought it was the syncing and iCloud so I turned of everything and it's still getting hot. I still have my iPad 2 so did a test by browsing the same thing on both of them for 15 minutes, but the iPad 3 got really hot but not the iPad 2


I sit only a few unites or all of them? Would be a huge lapse if it's all of them as I loved the iPad for its cold touch unlike my pc

Mar 17, 2012 11:52 PM in response to faatty

Bought first ipad today, late-adopter, love my macbook pro and iphone but this new ipad is way too hot to hold for more than 10 minutes, not comfortable at all reading or surfing the web, seems to be the most warm on left side of the screen, I will be returning it tomorrow, no way I can use this device, I assume they will figure this out and I will buy it at that point, new ipadS

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