iPhone 5S get EXTREMELY HOT and drains battery in 2-3 hours

10/28/13 I upgraded to a 5s 64g from a 5 64g. First issue I had was when I tried to restore my 5s from my last backup, iTunes gave me an error message stating my backup was currupt or not compatible with the device (5 out my 6 backups were "supposedly" corrupt). After hours of research I gave up and set the new 5s up as a new phone. Right away I noticed the battery was draining so rapidly I could watch the battery meter count down. 50% battery lost in (1) hour!!! The phone was noticeably hot, and actually shut down at one point due to overheating. When I tried to charge it, it would lose battery power faster then it could charge, so the only way to charge it was to power it down. I went to the apple store, was given a new phone, same problem occurred. Back to apple, another new phone, "Genius" (use that term loosely) asked me not to install anything on my phone for a few days & see how phone acted. So for (3) days I had an $800+ roladex with only contacts on the phone. Low & behold, no battery or overheating issues. So I attempt to sync with iTunes (contacts only, no music or photo's). Immediately battery starts draining and phone heats up. Back to Apple and I am given a (4th) phone.......asked by genius again not to sync or install apps for a week, no problems for a week, sync with iTunes, contacts only, instant battery drain and overheating.......Only way I can figure out to stop the problem is to do a full restore. I can install all my apps, just can't connect to iTunes. Apple is has been no help at all, I am about ready to throw in the towel and give Samsung a go.

I have exactly the same issue, and tried to delete my iCloud account and the phone gets cool immediately!

but it gets hot again after i have re-entered my icloud account.

i turned off the following and it gets resolved now: Settings > iCloud > Documents & Data. once this is turned off, it is not as hot as before even though i am charging it now..

i guess it may relates to the iWorks in iCloud thing.. apple must resolve this..

I have this phenomenon from time to time as well, so right now ... I tried, but neither this, switching off the "documents and data" thing in iCloud, nor airplane, nor background synchronisation off, not location services off, all together, all background apps off, battery drains nearly faster than it charges. "System Activity Monitor" (running as the only app with all this off) shows still about 90 to 100% load on both CPU cores. Unfortunately no means of knowing which one of the more than hundred processes is the troublemaker. Among the processes are however those with such worrying names containing "crash" or "Gestalt" ...

A reboot helped: "system activity monitor" shows only 10 to 60% of CPU activity (40% in average), still a proud 159 processes, although nothing els but "system activity monitor" is running, and finally slowly charging at a speed of a little percent per minute or so (but with location services, iCloud Docs&data, background synchronisation still off and in full Airplane mode).

Switching Airplane mode off, having back Wifi and GMS (Bluetooth was and stays off), activating one further app, DataMan does not make it worse, CPU load between 5 ane 70% in average about 25%, 186 processes now (among them Calendar jumped into life as well as Mail which was active from the reboot).

Now activating Background refresh (with a selection of apps allowed to do that) on top of that, CPU still not overly exhausted, charging of battery continues slowly, average CPU load now maybe 30%, varying from 10 to 60%. 193 processes, among them Preferences (needed to activate background refresh).

Now switching on location services, most apps and services are allowed to use them (but now purple arrow in the status bar, yet). Charging continues, seemingly a bit slower now (all the time since reboot screen at 50% luminosity), CPU cores below 25% load in average, relatively constant now. 198 processes, well, no, some older processes disappeared in the meantime, 198 is just the highest PID number.

Now switching back on this dreadfull iCloud dos&dat section which I suspect to be at the origin of al lot of trouble, in particular a process causing kernel panic and thus resets with the ****** "blue screen of death" named "backgroundd" when accessing iCloud documents within the iWorks suite, PDF Expert or GoodReader without leaving the corresponding page in the app before sending it to background. Well, re-activating this brought a jump in CPU activity to about 40% together with a bunch of new processes (213 is the highest counter now) and a harmless crash of the somewhat unstable "system activity monitor". But afterwards the CPU calms down to a mere 5% of activity (thus there is some higher activity for a while whenever the system has been rebooted -- in my case synchronising with the computer, forgot about that ...). Of course, no heating, and charging even accelerating now (as battery consumption seems to be quite proportional to CPU load, maybe as much as WLAN, 3G, 4G, Bluetooth, GPS and luminosity, known as battery draining candidates).

Now starting some potential trouble makers, here PDF Expert, synchronising automatically a whole bunch of files. Together with a new synchronisation with the Mac, it briefly made the CPU spike at a 100%, for some 20 seconds or so, but soon it comes back to 20% levels.

Resumee: Yet another singularity ... should better not happen when you are in the wilderness and count on your iphone ... so, whenever it gets awfully hot and starts draining, consider a reset -- and hopefull 7.0.3 will solve them all ...

I just got a 5S the other day (upgraded from a 4s). I have EVERY option turned on that can be... icloud, I have 6 email accounts, 3 icloud, 3 non and the phone checks the non apple emails every 15 mins.

My 5s has a mophie case on it so the phone thinks it's on AC (technically DC). That way it never drops Wifi when locked.

I never gets hot.. even when gaming.. warm, but not hot

A hot phone is usually cause by a few things

1a) Massive use (brightness cranked to max, and playing a CPU/GPU intensive game). This wil get a phone or ipad fairly warm...

1b) MASSIVE use of CPU due to a service or services that have corrupted settings going crazy on the device.

2) do 1A above while on DC power and the phone or device can get REALLY hot, and even activate thermal shutdown - especially if you use Apple's new 12W charger. Charging the battery generates heat. So high use plus charging will heat things (even if the charger isn't strong enough and the battery slowly drains, it will heat up). I use a Y device that lets me use a second charger, and I inject a 5V, 5Amp power source. This lets an ipad 3,4,or 5 be under HEAVY use and not drain the battery..but the device can get hot. It's safe as each device has a limit of how many volts/amps it will draw

3) This one is a no brainer .. don't leave the device in direct sunlight or warn room temps over 80-85F under heavy load.

The phone shouldn't get hot like the OP's phone with such little use. It sounds like there was an icloud issue, and it was solved. However if ANY ios device does this after a full erase and set up NEW (no restore), then it's probably a hardware fault. (if it were an ios bug, the all devices would have the heat issue).

ios does NOT constantly use icloud... I should say it SHOULDNT... It ONLY sends docs and data (if turned on) ONLY when you USE the app and save the data... OR every 24-36 hrs, it backs the phone up to icloud (if turned on AND you are on Wifi, AND it's running off power and not battery). Once you get past the initial FULL backup, the device uses incremental backups that should finish in 1-5 mins depending on your wifi / internet speed (and how many pictures, documents an app data you have). Eventually icloud will delete the backup and do a full backup and resume incremental backups (this safety thing in case your "base" backup gets corrupted on the apple servers ... and YES.. that has happened)

The OP's situation is usually caused by iphone upgrades. The settings from one phone gen to the next don't always restore properly (even if it's the same ios version).

icloud also doesn't backup all your passwords, and app data

TBH, icloud backup should be used, but only as an "oops" in case your itunes backup has an issue. The best way to backup and restore ios devices is with an encrypted itunes back up

1) an encrypted back up saves any and ALL passwords and secure features of the device (icloud backups do not fully support this)

2) backing up and restoring from itunes is a LOT faster. USB 2.0 is 480Mbits/sec (60 MegaBytes/sec). Granted NO ios device can handle moving data at those speeds plus there's overhead to consider. About 50MB/sec is as fast as you can go (a SATA 3 HDD or SSD can EASILY hit that cap) Even the most up to date devices can only move about 15-20MB/sec of data. Hence why no ios device is usb 3.0... No point. The read/write speed of the storage is just too slow.

That's still a LOT faster than any internet connection most people will use 🙂

I have a 110Mbit/20Mbit Time Warner Business class cable modem connection in my house (you don't want to know what I pay for that LOL). Even at my speeds, I can only pull 13.75MB (megabytes/sec).. and that's providing a site supports that.. Apple does NOT...Apple caps all app, music, movies, tv. blah blah at 35MB/sec for any of their services. I have a 64GB iphone 5s. Restoring and backing it up goes FAST as my 5S is mostly all music with some apps. My 128GB ipad 5 has 64GB of apps, no music (set to iTunes match as my phone plays my tunes).. and the other 64GB are video. I would NOT want to restore my ipad and have to DL 64GB of apps!! Not at apple's speed caps!

So as you can see, backup/restore from itunes a LOT safer, and less buggy

When I backed up my 4S to icloud and restored it to my new 5s, it prompted me for SOMEONE ELSES Apple ID! Apple thought it was the new activation lock feature, and that I got sold a used phone.. not the case.. the icloud servers accidentally tossed a few apps linked to another person's apple ID into MY backup. Deleting the icloud backup, backing up my 4S again, and restoring to the 5S solved it. I wasn't at home which is why I didn't use my itunes.

Dear John,

Thank you for your recent chat with Apple Support.

Your case number is 538349134.

If you need to contact us again about this issue, providing the case number will help our Advisor quickly locate your case.

We want to help you get the best service and support for your Apple product. Please visit our award-winning Support website to find product information, tutorials, troubleshooting steps, and much more.

A transcript of your chat support session follows:

Chat Transcript

Monday, December 2, 2013 01:39 PM

Duration: 29 minutes 17 seconds

Mike:

Thanks for contacting iOS. My name is Mike. Please give me a moment to look over your information.

John:

Hi

Mike:

Hello! Thanks for chatting with me today. Do I have the pleasure of speaking with John?

John:

i hv lost 2 connections u r the third one I hope I don't lose u too

John:

Yes mike

John:

pls help with the my device heating ?

John:

is this normal or not?

Mike:

I do apologize you have been disconnected, previously. I sure can check into the heating issue. Anything going on to cause it to heat up, such as only happening when on calls?

John:

It happening now as I am chatting with u

John:

only safari n couple of apps r in background

Mike:

I am checking out the diagnostic report you sent in, and I am seeing some applications running out of memory, which can cause this.

John:

no games no calls norging

Mike:

Do you have an app called MobileStore?

John:

*nothing

John:

no

John:

maybe that's the developers company name, try giving me the app name

Mike:

Ok, that may be the App Store being called that from here. What we can do is that if you have already closed out apps all the time, as shown here: iOS: Force an app to close, then we can try a settings reset to see if that helps out, as this usually helps with applications that are running and taking up plenty of memory.

Mike:

You can reset your settings by going to Settings, General, Reset, and select 'Reset All Settings.' That will restart the device and reset to the default settings without erasing any of your information.

John:

ok will try that, I can't try it now coz I'll lose this connection

Mike:

No problem. That usually does it. How long has this been going on?

John:

from the day I got it, i googled a lot but ppl r saying, icloud, lte, etc etc r the reasons, no one has a fix yet, so I said better I check with professionals

John:

and one more thing my battery is really really bad, I mean I get scared to use the phone if I kno that I hv no charger nearby, it's like survival mode

Mike:

There are a bunch of reasons that overheating can happen. One is the battery, but that shows as full health. I think it is the apps running out of memory. One is called MobileStore, which could be another name for the App Store, as I cannot find a MobileStore app in the App Store database. The other is called backboardd which is Apple Software for the phone that controls many of the settings. Resetting the settings is the first step to troubleshoot that.

John:

i know it's not a battery issue becoz last night I switched off every app in background , wifi, cellular etc, dim brightness , n locked the phone n slept it was 92%.

Mike:

If a reset of your settings doesn’t work, then I would try a restore as new without pulling a backup to it to see if that does it.

John:

when I woke up after 8 hours it was still 92% which is incredible standby time

Mike:

I can email you more information on restoring and other ways to keep apps from causing overheating / crashing, as well.

Mike:

Not bad for what is going on, as sometimes apps running heavy can cause faster battery drain also.

John:

but when I started using it whatsapp , iMessage, Safari, Facebook, I took me 3 hours n it reached 18%

John:

is this normal? Or will the reset sort it out ??

Mike:

FaceBook and any kind of java-based games coming from it are a huge culprit for battery drain. It does it to mine too!

Mike:

I would go with the reset of your settings first. By chance, did you restore a backup to that phone when you got it?

John:

but I'm using Facebook from Safari, I've restricted the Facebook app to wifi only n I'm on lte currently

John:

yes it was a restore from a 4s

John:

from iTunes thru iMac not icloud

John:

icloud backup *

Mike:

If that settings reset does not work, then I would try that restore as new, as sometimes apps that are backed up into another phone carry the app data over which can be another cause of overheating, apps crashing, and running out of memory, also.

John:

Oh ok I see

Mike:

You can redownload apps for free out of the app store and have fresh copies.

John:

but still I have 64gb how can I run out of memory ?

Mike:

The apps can get into some kind of glitch or loop that can cause them to work harder and harder each cycle, which eventually runs the phone out of memory.

John:

U mean the ram or storage memory ? I'm cobfuses

John:

confused *

Mike:

RAM

John:

oh ok I see

Mike:

Your storage is probably long fine with that much room.

John:

ok so after. I try both of ur recommended steps, how do I get back to u ?

Mike:

I would try those 2 steps. If issues persist, we can definitely get you into an Apple Retail Store or Apple Authorized Service Provider for them to look into it further for repair options, but I think between these two steps, there are great odds to getting resolution!

Mike:

I will keep a case open: 538349134

John:

Oh I pretty much hope so

John:

I myself want to get this resolved in the most easiest way

Mike:

You can chat us back anytime, and we can continue troubleshooting.

Mike:

Those two steps are both easy to do. I will email you my restore as new guide, in case the settings reset does not work.

John:

ok mike thank u,

John:

but resetting won't make me lose anything correct ?

Mike:

Not a reset of just your settings.

John:

the all settings reset ?

Mike:

Correct.

Mike:

The restore as new will.

Mike:

Because it would be done without pulling your backup back in.

John:

ok n I noticed some other issue which I think might be related to the memory n ur 2 steps might solve it

John:

sometime it just freezes

Mike:

Those steps resolve many issues. When you reset your settings, you will have to re-enter any wi-fi passwords again, as those get reset, but you should not lose any data.

John:

I press home button, lock button but nothing happens, it stays like that for 5-10 seconds then it resumes

Mike:

It is probably the running out of memory that is causing it to respond a bit slower, which those two steps will also resolve.

John:

Resetting can resolve that issue correct

John:

ok cool

John:

will try it now

Mike:

Fantastic!

Mike:

Even though there may be some steps to do, outside of chat, it is important to me that you are Very Satisfied with the support I provided in chat today. I am confident that this is a great option to Resolve the issue! I am going to email you some relevant articles, as well as this chat transcript, so you can view, at your leisure. I will also leave this case open, in case you have any future questions and wish to chat us back again.

John:

just to confirm again, the reset all settings in general, will just do reset and will not erase anything and also will not ask any restore from a backup correct. ??

Mike:

Correct. You will have to re-enter your wi-fi network passwords and set your phone background again, but the data will all be there.

John:

ok done

John:

thanks ur points r logic appreciate it

Mike:

No problem. Glad to help out anytime!

John:

the earlier person told me it's normal me sent me a link to location n temperature article on the iPhone, I thought it was a bot, thank god I clicked the link, got lost n came to u

John:

wish me luck.

John:

tc mike !

Mike:

I sure will!

Mike:

I have my fingers crossed!

Mike:

I’m only a robot when I dance!!!

Mike:

Haha!

John:

looool

Mike:

Thank you for chatting with me. It was my pleasure to be available for you, as you and all of my customers are amazing and brilliant! I will email you a chat transcript, for your records. You may receive additional emails from Apple over the next day or two. You'll then have an opportunity to answer feedback about your experience with me, Mike, today. If you are good-to-go, I'll go ahead and end the chat session. I hope you enjoy the rest of your day, John! Mike AppleCare Chat Support

John:

good byr

John:

Bye*

Mike:

Goodbye!

Thank you again for contacting Apple Support. We hope this has addressed your needs. If you need additional assistance with this topic, simply visit your case information page and choose the option to chat with us again.

Sincerely,

Apple Support

apple.com/support/country

Support Resources

Support Telephone Numbers Worldwide

Apple Support Communities

AppleCare Products

TM and copyright © 2013 Apple Inc. 1 Infinite Loop, MS 96-DM, Cupertino, CA 95014.

All Rights Reserved / Privacy Policy / Apple Support

I spent several times in Apple Care Suport ( CASES 590332090 AND 590610977 at 03/20/14 ). An senior engineer guide d me to put my IPHONE 5S in DFU MODE and reinstall firmware! Further we created a new ICLOUD ACCOUNT because I realized that when ICLOUD was activied temperature increased so much! I make an appointment in Apple Store and in 10 minutes they conclude DFU MODE. I restarted using my new icloud account.After then my phone is normal now. Battery is during by 12-10 hours! I have 2 iCloud accounts now.

I spent several times in Apple Care Suport ( CASES 590332090 AND 590610977 at 03/20/14 ). An senior engineer guide d me to put my IPHONE 5S in DFU MODE and reinstall firmware! Further we created a new ICLOUD ACCOUNT because I realized that when ICLOUD was activied temperature increased so much! I make an appointment in Apple Store and in 10 minutes they conclude DFU MODE. I restarted using my new icloud account.After then my phone is normal now. Battery is during by 12-10 hours! I have 2 iCloud accounts now.

Your info helps out tremendously! I went from a 5 to a 5s. 16gb to 32gb. I noticed it was running super hot, enough that it burned a Griffin soft plastic case! Anyway, I turned off iCloud. And it cooled down immediately. I kept reading your doc, so I turned iCould back on, and turned OFF "Documents". It is still running cool. So, I am going to experiment with it, as tyhere are only three apps in there.

Thanks for your work and posting, it really helped me out a bunch!

Tom

Look at your usage and standby times. If they're the same, you're probably going to have to either delete and readd all your apps manually, or restore and set up as a new device, bringing only the minimal data from an itunes sync or an icloud sync. annoying but it appears to be the only 100% way. If it carries on after that I would go to apple, as I've seen it be both the CPU and the battery in the past. 95% of the time it is the software, though. Oh the joys of rogue processes!

As you’re aware, your iPhone is a tiny little computer you carry around with you everywhere you go. It even has almost all of the same components as your computer – they’re just really, really small. You may also have noticed that unlike your computer, your iPhone doesn’t have have a fan, or any moving parts for that matter.

That’s not a problem, until something goes wrong. If you were to open up a desktop computer (preferably someone else’s), you would see a bunch of fans, but only one component would have a giant heat-sink and a fan plopped on top of it: the CPU. The part of your computer that heats up the fastest is the CPU, and the same goes for your iPhone.

The CPU of your computer or phone is a tremendously powerful chip, and it’s a lot like the engine of your car. When does your car use the most gas? When it’s accelerating. When you step on the gas, your car revs up until you achieve a cruising speed and let off the pedal. It takes a lot more work for a car to accelerate than it does to cruise.

How often do you put the “pedal to the metal” when you’re behind the wheel? I never do. Why? Car engines are very powerful, capable of accelerating very quickly. What would happen if you held the pedal to the metal for hours and hours, pushing the engine as hard as it can go? The engine would overheat and use a lot of gas. That’s exactly what’s happening to your iPhone.

Your iPhone’s CPU is so powerful that it rarely uses 5% of its capacity. If you’re reading this page using Safari on your iPhone, your iPhone should be nice and cool: You’re coasting. When you open an app like Safari, just like accelerating from a stop, your iPhone uses more CPU to get things going but very little once the app is loaded.

In 99% of cases, when your iPhone is hot, you have a software problem. That being said, if you dropped your phone in a bucket of water and then it started overheating, you may have a hardware problem. If your iPhone is dry, keep reading:

Unlike your car which has just one driver that controls the engine, the iPhone has a lot of “drivers”, or apps, each of which run simultaneously and have their own “accelerator pedals” capable of revving the CPU all the way up to 100%. One of your apps has gone rogue and it’s holding the pedal to the metal. Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to find out which app is misbehaving and put a stop to it.

I have experienced the heat & battery drain issue you have desribed on other iPhones after IOS upgrades. I discovered a great app called "system activety monitor" It shows you how much processor, and memory are being consumed, as well as the estimated battery life remaining. The really great thing about the app, I think, is it lists all the processes that are running, and te amount of memory they are taking up. Once I find the process that is hammering the device, I usually have to Google it to understand which function I need to turn off, or reset.

This has worked for me at least twice on my personal phones, and I have lost track of how many other phones I have fixed with this method.

Good luck, happy hunting!

Last week i was at the Apple Store about my problem that the iPhone 5s gets warm and the battery holds only 8 hours. At the Genius Bar they told my to update the IOS to 7.0.4. Today i had a schedule at the Genius Bar. After they did some checks at the Genius Bar it got replaced.

1. Try to decrease the brightness of the screen because it uses a lot of energy and gets hot easily.

2. Turn off the bluetooth,wi-fi,Lte,4G or 3G if not use. This will save the battery life and will cool down your iPhone.

3. Turn off the motion because it also uses battery life. To do tgis,go to general,then accessibility and reduce motion. The keyboard also uses a lot energy cause it is white colour and it's bright and the brighter the screen,the battery life easily reduced. To disable this keyboard colour, go to general,and then accessibility,and turn on the increase contrast to make the keyboard looks a bit darker and will use a bit energy. Like I said,if the screen brightness is too high,it will decrease the battery life and will get too hot.

4. If you like dark colour on your screen,go to general,then accessibility,and switch on the invert colour. This will save a lot energy from your iPhone and you can use it about 12 hours.

5. If the iPone is still hot,then I don't know what to do. My 5S works for 12 hours with all of this information and its not hot like it used to be,it even also works perfectly fine and I even off my location service because it uses a lot of energy to activate the antenna to the satalite if you know what I mean.

Okay. That's all for tiday from me and try this info from me and let's see if one of you tried it.

Thank you for your co-operation.

It's a miracle :-) turned of ICloud and no its normal while charging!!! I'm happy !!