'Fry-OS 8' iPhone BLEW UP MY PANTS wails roasted Johnson A bloke on Long Island, New York, claims an iPhone 5C exploded in his pants, putting him in hospital for 10 days with second and third-degree burns. Incredible, isn't it? Someone bought an iPhone 5C. Apple has told The Register it is investigating the pocket bomb allegation. Erik Johnson, 29, who works as an escalator and …
No, we don't.
Defenestrate means to remove the window(s), glass, frames and everything.
I suppose you could achieve that by hurling someone very hard at the assembly, but there must be less messy ways.
Like formatting the disk and installing Linux (without systemd, please).
-- Ducks and runs back under bridge quick --.
Yes, I know the article is about an ithingy (TM) but I need an IT angle.
Defenestrate comes from the same language that brings you the verb revolveriser - to shoot someone with a revolver.
It is frankly idiotic carrying a mobile in a trouser pocket, for several health reasons, and the likely risk that a too mechanically deformed Lithium battery will short circuit and guarantee serious burns for many seconds because you can't remove a burning phone and can't cool it, so have to somehow eventually shed the trousers, as this man discovered the hard way!
Infernoz,
Do you know something that very few people around the globe know about?
Bearing in mind the thankfully minimal amounts of phone-in-pocket mini conflagrations that have occured (out of several hundred-million or so POTENTIAL) events, it is not that likely eh?
Ooi before a career change I was a Risk Consultant on big infrastructure projects, hence I have a bit of knowledge about probability.
FYI I cycled through central London everyday...
Also where would you suggest I carried my phone whilst out and about?
Cheers,
J.
I had a phone battery short circuit in my pocket years ago. I was in the line for the tills at W H Smiths, arms full of comics and I had to run outside with the security guards chasing me....
Got outside, ripped the battery out of the phone and it stopped heating up, panic over. Still left me with a minor burn to the leg. Happily the security chaps didn't try to stop or arrest me
However the big question is.....what if the battery had been permanently fixed in the phone? No way of removing it and so breaking the short circuit. So it would just have heated until igniting. Not too great a problem in a shop in a busy town centre......but on a train? or an aircraft? Not a nice thought.
The phone itself was a Motorola, I sent it to their contract service centre - who reckoned it had got wet. I met the MD of the service company at a training meeting a few weeks later and gave him hell - that phone had never been anywhere near water
Alternative two words: Builder trousers. Mine got a grand total of 6 pockets each with the ones on the thigh perfect for a phone - you can never bend it in one of those. You can also easily extract it from there in an emergency.
Yeah, I know - not fashionable.
You need to wear early 1980-es style elasticated jeans nowdays to be kewl - the type we had in secondary school. Also stick the phone in the front pocket to ensure that the elasticated pants keep it in the correct position so it bends. Once again - it is key to kewlness. And key to idiocy too.
Not me. In secondary school I was forced to wear a kilt - Black Watch in Forms 1-5, Stewart in the Lower and Upper 6th. The rest of the uniform is FAR too hideous to mention, it involved a great deal of navy. And brown. And tan. And beige.
We were also,forced to wear thick felt blazers in the summer, and thin polycotton macs in the winter. Both navy.
Nuns are sadists.
"So, despite having one put him in hospital and being frightened of them, he still bought another one?"
No, Mr Johnson didn't say that thing about putting it on the seat. His lawyer (Mr Della) did.
Johnson apparently has no plans to buy another phone.
I bet you money he didn't just drop his keys, but the phone too...and put it in his pocket after fetching it. The Li-ion batteries can be sensitive to shock.
Google : "A Lesson In Lithium-Ion Volatility -- Don't Try This at Home"
We seem to forget the energy density in these new batteries is very significant. I'm an avid model aircraft flier and the move to Li-Po battery packs for electric planes has offered me two instances of the battery pack going 'thermonuclear'.
Once, in a rapid charging station undergoing a typical cycle, after the pack had fallen 3-4 ft to concrete. The pack blew up like a balloon, developed a blister that rapidly burst into flames jetting out. The other instance was after a crash of an F18, where there was a sudden pop about half a minute after it hit the field. A flame bust up about a foot off the ground with a nasty hiss. What was left of the canopy was a fused mess of EDF plastic.
Lawyer reported as saying,
"First and foremost, we have to find out how this happened and prevent it from happening ever again," he said. "That's the whole goal here. Is the product safe?"
Yes, and the best way of achieving that goal is for Apple to award my client thousands of dollars in compensation so that he can pay for the legal advice.
In four years at the Genius Bar I must have seen fewer than 5 "hot battery" incidents which had led to smoke and/or flames. In most of the cases, the phone had previously got wet.
There were a fair number of expanded batteries in both phones and MacBooks, but this was usually down to the battery reaching the end of its useful life.
Andy,
On a smilar note, the battery life of my well looked after Note II was steadily deteriorating, on returning it to the EE (nothing nowhere) shop I was a little surprised to be told that my 17 month old phone only had a guarantee of 6 months on the battery.
After I got a bit arsey and reminded them about relevant bits of our statute book, a helpful EE chap spotted that the battery was bulging, hence he said it would probably not be a problem re a replacement.
Apparently it is not uncommon for certain Samsung devices.
Cheers,
Jay
"There were a fair number of expanded batteries in both phones and MacBooks, but this was usually down to the battery reaching the end of its useful life."
Doesn't this suggest that handsets shouldn't be designed with sealed in batteries? Or at least integrate some kind of give in the seals or casing of the phone to accommodate this "usual" swelling behaviour.
Battery expansion is not rare. i saw plenty of it with early USB chargers. I never found out if it was an issue of the chemistry, or bad charger design. I had 3 pocket USB chargers expand while simply being stored in a drawer. They were not all the same brand, but were purchased from retailers who carry 'reconditioned' products.
The phone pictured is clearly a black 5, not a 5C. You can see the black metal chamfered edge which the 5C doesn't have, and you can't get a 5C with a black back. Based on that, this is an older phone so who knows how much mistreatment it has had and it may not even be on the original battery.
I don't think so. The 5C anodized black edge is chamfered. However, I'd bet $ that he dropped it along with his keys.
You really don't want to abuse these batteries. A guy fell off a cart and bent his iPhone 6, with very similar results. Google "iPhone-6-user-left-second-degree-burns-new-device-bent-burst-flames"
"First and foremost, we have to find out how this happened and prevent it from happening ever again," he said. "That's the whole goal here. Is the product safe?"
How refreshing! A lawyer that is only interested in preventing other people from suffering burn injuries at the hands of an iPhone. I assume he won't be seeking any money for his client and only assurances that it won't happen again. Such a nice lawyer, so kind and full of goodness.
"...and prevent it from happening ever again," he said.
From an engineering stand point this NOT possible. There is always a very small chance of something unforeseeable occurring. Even if current interrupt devices were added to the LIPO pack design.
From a user standpoint it is quite preventable. Do not put a device in body orifices, or difficult to access pockets that is subject to physical abuse, which contains an energy device known to fail under shock, & punctures which delaminate the energy cell, not to mention catastrophic failure when short circuited, particularly by fluids.
Lithium-Polymer batteries burn because of mechanical damage, such as being bent or punctured; electrical damage such as bad chargers (such as cheap copies); or manufacturing defects such as bad manufacturers (non-original replacement batteries for example) or bad processes or bad design or rarely undetected quality problems (often followed by recalls).
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