Has anyone else seen "iPhone needs to cool down before you can use it"?
Just now, upon taking my iPhone 4 out of my pocket where it lives, I was faced with a screen saying "iPhone needs to cool down before you can use it" (see below - screenshot mysteriously still worked). The only thing it would let me do was dial emergency calls. The phone was not noticeably any warmer than usual when idle. Are there any known issues with this?
From the User's Guide:
If the interior temperature of iPhone exceeds normal operating temperatures, you may experience the following as it attempts to regulate its temperature:
- iPhone stops charging
- display dims
- weak cellular signal
- temperature warning screen appears
Important: You cannot use iPhone while the temperature warning screen is displayed except to make an emergency call. If none of the above measures succeeds in lowering the internal temperature, iPhone automatically goes into a deep sleep mode until it cools. You cannot make an emergency call when iPhone is in this mode. Move iPhone to a cooler location and wait a few minutes before trying to use iPhone again.
There have been numerous cases of all sorts of consumer electronics melting/exploding, and these have often been settled with lawsuits. It is appropriate that the iPhone take preemptive measures to avoid such accidents.
This happened to my brother's iPhone 4 a few times. When he took it to the Apple Store, they ran a special diagnostic that revealed the phone had reached 200 degrees inside. Needless to say, the phone was replaced.
This is a long shot but maybe there's a process going on in the background that's using a lot of processor cycles.
Consider double clicking the home button and quitting everything running and shutting the iPhone down, then restarting it.
Consider turning off bluetooth to see if that's an issue.