iPhones hate the cold, too
Some users say X doesn’t immediately respond.
Some of Apple’s $1,000-plus iPhone X’s didn’t work immediately when the temperature dropped.
Sounds alarming, right? Apple’s promise of a software update to its latest phone, to fix a problem reported by some users that they don’t respond when suddenly exposed to frigid weather, raises the question of whether these increasingly sophisticated devices are rugged enough for extreme temperatures.
It turns out most major manufacturers, including Apple, suggest their devices work best in the climate our bodies also prefer — and when it gets frigid, to turn the phone off (and head inside).
That seems like a tall order for phone owners where it regularly slips to the single digits or worse. So we asked cellphone repair shops in Canada and Alaska: Can it get too cold to run smartphones?
It is the “battery, battery, battery,” that is most vulnerable to the elements, says Roger Gurney, owner of Arctic Tech Solutions in Fairbanks, Alaska.
Gurney explains that the lithium-ion batteries can stop discharging electricity when it is extremely cold, though once you warm up and charge the battery back indoors you should be fine. Problems would only arise, he maintains, if you repeatedly expose the phone to sub-zero temperatures.
Apple recommends operating iOS devices where the ambient temp is between 32 and 95 degrees Fahrenheit but says it’s fine to store the device at much colder temps — all the way down to minus 4 degrees Fahrenheit. At those lower temperatures you’ll want to shut the phone off.
Samsung cites a similar operating range for its phones.
Of course, try as you might to keep your phone warm in a pocket or a purse, it’s near impossible to avoid Mother Nature’s wrath some of the time.
Charlie Harb, general manager of CPR-Cell Phone Repair in the Cleveland suburb of Mayfield Heights, Ohio, does see a rise in repairs during extreme weather. “I can’t emphasize enough how volatile smartphone batteries are to user conditions,” he says.
According to Harb, both the winter and summer months can be unkind to batteries, especially when customers leave their smartphones in the glove compartments of their cars or in a dash- board mount.
“It’s the same issue at both ends of the temperature spectrum,” he says.
His company can test whether a phone is conking out because of battery damage.
If CPR’s tests show the “battery health” of a phone is at 80% but your phone screen gauge tells you that you are at 100%, the real of health of the phone is at 80%, “because 20% has been damaged and is no longer functional.”
Harb also says screens may crack more easily in the cold. “At the end of the day our smartphone screens are made of glass, and the colder your phone is, the slower the molecules are moving, and so it’s going to be more susceptible to breaking.”
Joe Kenny, who owns a CPR-Cell Phone Repair shop in Winnipeg, Canada, actually sees an uptick in phone repairs during the summer months compared to winter, if only because that’s when folks are more active and likely to pull phones out of their pockets and drop them, resulting in smashed screens or water damage.