Reports of the new iPhone 15 Pro and iPhone 15 Pro Max overheating could come down to thermal system compromises, according to one prominent analyst.
There have been a not insignificant smattering of reports over the past week from disgruntled iPhone 15 Pro buyers, claiming that some of these £999-and-upwards phones are running a little toasty. We’re talking ‘ouch that’s hard to a hold’ hot.
According to a new Medium post from renowned Apple analyst Ming-Chi Kuo, this has nothing to do with Apple’s new A17 Pro chip, which is the first mobile processor built using a smaller 3nm process.
Kuo has surveyed his production line sources, and has concluded that “the primary cause is more likely the compromises made in the thermal system design to achieve a lighter weight, such as the reduced heat dissipation area and the use of a titanium frame, which negatively impacts thermal efficiency”.
In other words, Apple has stripped away useful layers and means of cooling in pursuit of the iPhone 15 Pro line’s much remarked-upon lighter design.
Kuo expects Apple to address these overheating reports through software updates, though he states that improvements may be limited unless the company is willing to lower the chip’s clock rate. In which case, the A17 Pro wouldn’t end up providing quite the performance bump that Apple claimed at its September 12 launch event.
It’ll be interesting to see how the iPhone 15 Pro and Pro Max cope when Resident 8 Village lands on October 30. It’ll be the first of several console-quality games to arrive as Pro-exclusives, and you can bet your bottom dollar they’ll all place that A17 Pro chip under considerable and sustained load.
