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App warms your hands by overheating your iPhone

by Dave Caolo Jan 5th 2010 at 1:30PM

Here's an app from among the App Store's stranger selections. Much like the Zippo Hand Warmer, PocketHeat [iTunes link] is meant to keep your hands warm.

it works by making the iPhone max out 100% of its power processing capacity. A slider lets you adjust the temperature and illuminate the "heating elements." According to several App Store reviews, it doesn't work so well.

We don't know just how hot it gets, but we imagine there are safeguards to prevent serious overheating. According to the Apple Knowledge Base, the iPhone should be operated "...in a place where the temperature is between 0º and 35º C (32º to 95º F)." Prolonged exposure to extreme heat will produce the temperature warning screen. The app got approved (somehow), so we assume it's safe. But I'm not installing it.

We don't know why you'd want to run your undoubtedly-still-on-contract iPhone at 100% capacity -- buried inside a confined pocket -- for any length of time, but that's up to you. At the very least your battery would drain in no time. At worst, well ... let's not find out. You can get PocketHeat now for $0.99US.

Or just buy gloves.

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Here's an app from among the App Store's stranger selections. Much like the Zippo Hand Warmer, PocketHeat [iTunes link] is meant to keep...
 

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Dan

I've got an app like that on my PowerBook - it's from a little company called Adobe; the program's called 'Flash Player.' It heats that sucker right up and keeps my lap nice and toasty on cold winter nights.

January 05 2010 at 7:51 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
2 replies to Dan's comment
Jay

totally! I hate how shitty flash is for os x. Its unacceptably bad. When a mac pro wont play a video on youtube without the cpu rising above 50% you know its shit.

January 06 2010 at 2:31 AM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Sebastian

Too bad that app won't make it to the iPhone...
Maybe Adobe should submit it as a handwarmer also, see if it gets approved

January 06 2010 at 5:32 AM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Desterado

Are some of you people really dumb enough to believe that this could damage your phone?

Yeah, and encoding videos on your laptop will damage that too. Better not max out a CPU it might ASPLODE!

January 05 2010 at 6:40 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
MikeWard1701

They allowed this into the app store? Mind you, Apple's quids in either ways, 30% from every sale, and even more money when you have to buy a new iPhone.

If you buy and install this more fool you! It's the same as the people who do folding@home on their computers and whine when their CPU/GPU dies much quicker than they expected.

January 05 2010 at 6:39 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
pika2000

Biggest fail. I mean really? You don't want to buy a cheap hand warmer, and rather risk damaging your expensive phone?

January 05 2010 at 3:23 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Markito

Just buy the TomTom GPS Navigation App and run it for awhile. That will do the trick. Of course that is $49 more expensive (or $99 more if you are a sucker and bought it back when I did).

January 05 2010 at 2:52 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Tim C

How does an app like this make it through the review process! This is ludicrous that this does and professional apps like Google Voice don't...

January 05 2010 at 2:39 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Amy Murphy

Amazing that you can do this but I think it is a little ridiculous! I would worry about overheating my precious phone.

January 05 2010 at 2:31 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
tyler138

Or by gloves..?

What if you aint trying to keep your hands warm ;)

January 05 2010 at 2:20 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Sara

Mittens. Then your fingers can keep each other warm.

January 05 2010 at 2:01 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
1 reply to Sara's comment
Fred

But then how do I use my iPhone?!?!?!

January 05 2010 at 4:27 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
michas_pi

I thought the iPhone got hot enough already from everyday use?

Anyway, this application is incredibly stupid.

January 05 2010 at 1:57 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
2 replies to michas_pi's comment
T Webb

There are alot of incredibly stupid apps. I'd say less than 10% are useful with the other 90% being apps that copy one another.

January 05 2010 at 2:10 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
pax copia

Too bad you can't run this at the same time you run iFart, iAmRich or some such thing.

January 05 2010 at 4:40 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
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