iPhone News Updated

Next iPhone will charge via Micro USB

Apple signs up to phone charger “harmonization”

Apple has signed up to an EU-wide “harmonization” of phone chargers, which Pocket-lint first brought you news of back in September 2007.

The iPhone-maker has joined Nokia, Sony Ericsson, Motorola, LG, NEC, Qualcomm, RIM, Samsung and Texas Instruments in signing an agreement to use a standard micro-USB socket to charge handsets.

The agreement means that from next year, Apple will have to offer a micro USB socket on the iPhone. Whether that means that the traditional dock connector will be changed or whether there’ll be an adaptor remains to be seen.

It’s unclear too what’ll happen to the dock ecosystem that’s built up around the iPod and iPhone. We’ve put in an email to Apple asking it to clarify what the company’s plans are, but have had no response at the time of writing.

On the bright side, the agreement should mean an end to the difficulty of coping with five different chargers in your house or office. Here’s hoping that the European Comission offers some way of recycling all those old chargers that are now redundant.

[Thanks: http://www.pocket-lint.com]

Apple iPhone 3G S Overheating

Just when you thought the Apple iPhone 3G S couldn’t get any hotter, the popular smartphone has been plagued with overheating issues, and, in some cases, is getting so toasty that the device itself turns brown.

It appears the ill-fated Hottest Girls application isn’t the only thing making new iPhone users sweat.

Apple has yet to respond to the claims.

French site Le Journal du Geek featured a photo of what appears to be a scorched Apple iPhone 3G S, which the site says overheated and turned the white casing pink, or light brown from the heat.

Another French site, Nowhere Else also posted images of Apple iPhone 3G S devices discolored by overheating.

Domestic users are also feeling the heat. One of the forums on Apple’s Apple Discussion site indicates that a host of users’ iPhones are overheating. One user said a friend’s Apple iPhone 3G S “got extremely hot. He almost put it into the fridge.”

The early blame seems to fall on games and GPS, resource-intensive applications that are pumping up the battery until it gets too hot to handle and eventually overheats.

Even over on PC World, Melissa J. Perenson wrote that her Apple iPhone 3G S “became very hot. Very, very hot — not just on the back, but the entire length of the front face, too.” At the time, she was using a game and then the Web browser over a Wi-Fi connection with the device plugged in. “Toasty doesn’t even describe how surprisingly hot it got. It was too hot to even put the phone against my face.”

One commenter shared this tale: “I had my iPhone under my pillow playing music through the head phones for a nap; I awoke with a sharp pain on my left arm under the pillow. I had been burned decently from the iPhone getting so hot. The phone seems to function fine though.”

While another offered this advice to users of overheating iPhone 3G S smartphones: “Throw out your microwave — simply drop your iPhone on the plate instead.”

[Thanks: http://www.crn.com]