14 DAY TRIAL // Cell Phone Repair teamed up with Toronto's Global News to conduct an experiment to see how iPhones react to the cold and learned that two identical devices exhibited different power drainage depending on the temperatures they were exposed to.
The testers took two identical iPhones, left one outside in the cold, and took the other one inside where it was nice and warm. After thirty minutes, the iPhone that was out in the open had dropped from 100% to 86% battery life.
The one that stayed inside had lost a meager 1% of its charge (from 100% to 99%).
Joe Tersigni, managing partner of Cell Phone Repair, said that the lithium-ion battery and the LCD display found in Apple’s iPhones didn’t work well in the cold.
In fact, if the battery gets too cold, the phone will shut off, something Cell Phone Repair was able to demonstrate in its tests.
“The [battery] material was made out of lithium and in extreme temperatures, hot or cold, there are changes in the chemical. It’s a chemical reaction. So the battery will work harder trying to retain the temperature of the phone,” said Tersigni.
If this happens to you, whatever you do, don’t try to immediately power the phone back on. According to Tersigni, you should warm it up first.
Update: Be careful to warm up your iPhone gradually, without direct exposure to heat, in order to avoid condensation inside the handset. Otherwise this too might damage it beyond repair.
“The wrong way is to turn it on in the extreme cold. In the cold weather, that’s about the only way you’ll cause permanent damage,” he said. “We advise, bring it in the house, get it warmed up then turn it on.”
Tersigni’s winning advice to avoid such situations is to always hold your iPhone close to your body. And that’s to keep the LCD warm too, not just the battery.
“The material in the LCD is liquid crystals and in the cold weather it reacts as well,” he says. “Right now the crystals they form together, they align together, to give you an image. When the cold affects it, they clump or aggregate, so it creates bubbles.”
So the next time you’re out skiing or snowboarding, remember these tips before you blame Apple for the iPhone not working.