UK Edition
iPhone 'explodes' in owner's hands - should you be worried?
A smartphone repair shop owner claims this is the moment an iPhone ‘exploded’ in a customer’s hand.
Australian Simon Owen shared CCTV footage on social media of smoke coming out of the iPhone 6 Plus moments after the customer walked into his repair shop in Queensland.
Mr Owen also shared photos of the charred Apple phone, claiming the “battery failed and exploded”.
The footage shows the customer pressing his thumbs down on the iPhone, which already has a cracked screen, before smoke fills the shop.
“A customer came into the store with screen damaged iPhone 6+ for repair. [They] wanted to repair a broken screen and complained of the Apple brand battery not holding charge,” a spokesperson for the store said.
“We removed the customer’s Otterbox [smartphone case] and prepared to book the phone in.
“Then, the customer picked up [the] phone and applied a regular amount of pressure to the screen, the same as any normal person would do every day during regular use.
“The battery failed and exploded. Initial force of the explosion caused the screen to come off the phone.
“Draw your own conclusions, but imagine if this happened five minutes earlier when the guy was driving to the shop...”
Mr Owen told the Sydney Morning Herald: “It’s 100 per cent pure coincidence that it happened when he was talking to the repairer.”
He added the customer bought him a crate of beer after the incident.
So should Apple iPhone owners be worried?
The video shows that the iPhone screen was already cracked and it’s unclear how it was actually damaged. The serial number also appears to have been scratched off. There are also no reports of the owner of the phone reporting the issue to Apple.
Apple has previously looked into reports of an iPhone spontaneously catching fire after videos surfaced online.
In December, Apple blamed “external physical damage” after reports of iPhones catching fire in China, according to Reuters.
Last year, Apple rivals Samsung issued a global recall of its new Galaxy Note 7 phone, affecting millions of devices, after a fault with the phone's battery caused it to explode.