New iPad '3' Release Excitement Wanes As Overheating Rumors Emerge

Excitement over Apple's New iPad 3 release last week has waned as overheating issues have emerged, casting doubts on whether the tablet is all it's cracked up to be.

Apple's New iPad--known to many tech junkies as the iPad 3--was released to great fanfare on Friday, with hundreds of thousands of devices sold in the first few hours after it hit the shelves at Apple stores.

But the honeymoon may be shorter than the company would have liked, as reports are already coming in that the lower left-hand corner of the New iPad gets very warm when the device is used for extended periods of time:

I just received an iPad 3 White 32GB WIFI, unfortunately, when holding it in portrait mode, the iPad WARMS UP (not overheat) on the left, near the bottom, where my hands would be, forums.macrumors.com user masterblingpimp posted on the site Friday.

And some early adopters of Apple's New iPad seem to be concerned that the issue may be dangerous:

Mine is a 64 with WIFi and LTE - LTE not hooked up yet - got hot enogh that I measured with infared thermometer and it was 117 degree after 10 minutes - my little boy says its too hot to hold - (Great !) but seriously its not comfortable and I will be returning to the store, discussions.apple.com forum user amytula posted on the site on Sunday.

Amytula added in a separate posting that while playing the video game Metal Storm on her New iPad 3 with her son, the iPad 3 was so hot to the touch that my son said it was too hot to hold. We stopped playing because the darned thing was so hot? Maybe not fry eggs but too hot to comfortably hold any longer.

The overheating issue is such a major concern to some that it already appears to be driving some techies away from purchasing an iPad 3 for themselves:

i noticed the heat immediately at the apple store... was hoping it might have been due to the ipad being manipulated too much but this confirms what i feared..., forums.macrumors.com user macdud wrote on Friday. the new ipad overheats.. i found this very unpleasant, actually it's a deal breaker for me... i think i'll go looking for a ipad2.

But some owners, including Sebastian Slania at discussions.apple.com, say they haven't had such issues: My new ipad does not overheat, Slania posted on Sunday.

And discussions.apple.com poster TechnoMike says he may know how to address the overheating problem:

I highly suggest that once you unbox the ipad. Do not charge it, use all the battery until it reach 0%, completely dead. Freshly charge the ipad and that should do the trick, TechnoMike wrote. Yesterday my ipad was massively over heated, I decided to use up all the battery ( I suggest doing some harcore gaming, takes very long to use up the battery) and recharged. Now today I am using the same applications as yesterday and so far, no sign of excessive heating issue. Just lil bit warm which is normal. I have also noticed the battery charges just a bit quicker.