Sudden explosion in reports of exploding phones An American student's iPhone has exploded in his pocket - the latest in a global wave of smartphone combustions increasingly suggesting one of the seven signs of the modern Apocalypse is upon us. Darin Hlavaty, a student at Rowan College at Burlington County, told US media network ABC that his iPhone 6 Plus had exploded in his …
To be even fairer, this was a 6 Plus. The fact they've been around for 2 years without a vast and overwhelming mass of explosion reports suggest this one is very much a one-off and *may* even have been something to do with how the guy holds it - such as if he keeps it in the flame of his lighter.
Samsung had a defect in the batteries they made that was the direct cause of explosions. So far we have (that I've heard in the past week) two reports of exploding/burning iPhones. One that burned up during delivery, and from the picture of the box was mailed in was OBVIOUSLY caused by something piercing the battery. Now we have a report of someone's phone catching fire in their back pocket - I have to wonder how many times he sat on it if he keeps it there.
If there was a manufacturing defect in the iPhone or its battery that was causing a rash of explosions like Samsung, I'm sure Apple would recall them. If they didn't, the CPSA would force them to in the US, and I'm sure the equivalent EU body as well. But you don't recall phones after one or two reports. Otherwise Samsung would have to recall more than the Note 7, because there have been reports of other Samsung models going up in flames as well.
Consider too how many more iPhones 7s (assuming this latest report even is an iPhone 7) there are out there versus Note 7s, so comparing a couple reports of iPhones going up out of the 20 million or so sold by now, and the hundred or so reports out of the couple million Note 7s shipped. If iPhone 7s were blowing up at the same rate, there would be a thousand reports already.
So if I am not interested in the new 'pocket warmer' feature I guess I just buy a new battery for my current phone to extend it's life.
Hmmm seems the battery swap feature is missing from the new phones, is it a 'one in, one out' concept for features or is it a requirement that the battery is glued in for the heating feature to work properly?
Normally if someone's phone caught on fire in Australia or Greece it isn't going to make the news for the Reg to hear about it, and if they did they probably wouldn't bother writing about it. But with exploding phones become newsworthy thanks to Samsung, every report is getting a lot more attention. Once the hype dies down there will still be the odd exploding phone (more likely if you keep it in your back pocket, I imagine) but they will again be ignored.
Plus we have to consider the possibility that some of these reports are bogus. Not saying this one is, I don't know enough about it, but I'm sure some people will take advantage of the hype to 1) get attention for themselves 2) try to get a phone replaced that they broke in some other way by burning it up 3) try to get some sort of settlement if they can claim injury. "My butt has second degree burns, but a Macbook would make it all better".
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