iPhone runs hot — but not in a good way

We’re at the one-week mark of the iPhone and, predictably, we’re already starting to hear some complaints. We’re not quite sure how far-reaching these complaints are, but when they reach an MSNBC contributor, you can be sure they’ll at least be well heard. Joe Hutsko, who also runs the tech blogJOEyGADGET, had some serious problems: “four days and the iPhone I spent eight hours in line to buy was a goner.” The problem: his iPhone was freezing up, and wouldn’t restart.

At first I thought it was just a hiccup when the iPhone was working fine one minute, then wouldn’t turn on the next. I tried the prescribed reset (hold down the Home and Sleep/Wake buttons at the same time for several seconds until the device restarts) with no luck. Black screen, period. But when I plugged it in the Apple logo appeared as if restarting. Then it vanished, the screen went black again, and a few seconds later the logo reappeared, as if restarting. Again. Then again. And again. Trouble in paradise.

Mr. Hutsko then tried plugging it into iTunes for a “restore” process, but after some initial success, he was ultimately greeted with the same problem. The only solution left was to try to get an exchange. That seems like a reasonable request, except that you can’t do it at an AT&T store, even if that’s where you purchased an iPhone. You can get a refund — though they tack on a 10 percent restocking fee — but in order to get an exchange, you have to go to an Apple store. Thankfully, they service iPhone customers who didn’t buy the gadget at their stores. All ended well in this story, as Mr. Hutsko got his new iPhone (they had an 8 GB in stock), and is back up and running. However, the underlying problem may be of concern for other iPhone users — and it still looms large for Mr. Hutsko himself. A problem he noticed during his four days with the iPhone was that it got extremely hot, especially when plugged in. This is not a good sign, especially for a device without an internal cooling fan. We’ll be very interested to hear if anyone else is experiencing such problems. [MSNBC]]]>