Just as the furor over the iPhone 4 was passing over, Steve Job’s Apple has been caught in another maelstrom. This time it is with the iPad. There are claims, and even a lawsuit, that as hot as the iPad is, it is taking its hotness literally. Apparently, after a few minutes’ usage the gadget announces ‘Warning: iPad needs to cool down before you can use it’.

The lawsuit

A federal class action lawsuit has been filed in the U.S. District Court, Northern District of California in Oakland, CA against Apple Inc. for an undisclosed amount in damages. The suit was because of the performance iPad and specifically that it ‘doesn’t live up to the reasonable consumer’s expectations created by Apple,’ because ‘it overheats so quickly under common weather conditions.’

The common weather conditions that caused the computer and e-book reader to overheat was defined with phrases like ‘normal sunlight’, ‘normal outdoors conditions’ and ‘a few minutes in direct sunlight’ implying that the iPad quickly overheated, sometimes after only a few minutes of usage, when used outdoors or in direct sunlight.

The Temperatures

Apple’s support website states that the normal operating temperature of the iPad ranged from 0° to 35°C (32° to 95°F) and that low or high temperature conditions could shorten the tablet’s battery life or cause the iPad to temporarily stop working properly. It also states that it is normal for the device to get warm when it was being used or charged.

The only problem is that the complaints coming in show that the iPad owners beg to differ. Apart from the three accusers, the issue has been mentioned in iPad forums as early as April when the iPad was released. One of the first people to go public on the issue was PC Magazine’s editor Zach Honig. He Twittered that he used his iPad for only 10 minutes on a sunny New York day before it overheated and shutdown with the error message. His solution: stick the iPad in your fridge. His tablet was up and running after a minute.

The Reply

Apple has sold over 3 million iPads between April and June alone, and the trend doesn’t seem to be abating. In fact Apple Inc.’s profits have been boosted by the sales of iPads and the newly released iPhone 4, a product that was faced with the ‘antennagate’ crisis right after its spectacular launch. And although that issue was resolved in a non-technical manner, Apple is yet to give an answer on the current ‘hot’ topic.