June 30, 2009, 2:59 AM — Well, the iPhone 3GS, with its crazy opening weekend sales, couldn't be an unparalleled success forever, could it? Murmurings around the Web are that Apple's latest smartphone has a bit of an overheating problem. A French iPhone user shared the terrible photos of his white-backed phone that's been discolored by the heat; proving that this isn't just a European afflictions, Americans are reporting similar searing high temperatures, if not the discoloration. Wired reports that the problems may lie in the battery, and that a recall could be in the offing.
Not wanting to be left out by the hardware problem fun, iPhone OS 3.0 is also showing a few quirks, including disappearing application icons, and icons that link to the wrong application. And, to complete the trifecta, there are network issues as well, with some users reporting being on the Edge network rather than the 3G network much more often that they were on the iPhone 3G. The latter, it turns out, may just reflect the 3GS's more accurate display -- previously, users were on Edge even when their phones said they were on 3G.
Will these problems sink the phone? Almost certainly not. They represent a tiny fraction of users; software problems can be fixed by software updates, and, in many cases, battery-related issues can too, since they often arise from the OS's use of the hardware rather than hardware faults per se. A true battery problem and subsequent recall could get spendy, though. Let us not forget the network problems that so engaged the Apple rumor mill when the 3G first came out, which totally failed to stop the iPhone's transformation into a money-making machine.
And on that note, I do have to say that over the last week I've some of my first problems with dropped calls in months; totally unscientifically, I blame all the 3GS newbies who've come on board to AT&T's creaking network over the past few days. Let's hope some of those iPhone profits are going to shore that network up.
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