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iPhone XS Max iPhone XS Max explodes, burns owner

BigDO

BigDO

macrumors 68000
Original poster
Dec 9, 2012
1,516
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This is quite concerning.

https://9to5mac.com/2018/12/29/iphone-xs-max-fire-exploded/

A man from Columbus, Ohio claims that his less than one-month old iPhone XS Max caught fire and exploded in his pants pocket around December 12, iDropNews reports. The man, Josh Hillard, says he initially noticed a strange smell emanating from his rear pant pocket, before feeling a “large amount of heat” allegedly burn his leg.

While the man says he’s already been in contact with Apple regarding the matter, their offer of a replacement hasn’t seemed to bode well, who says he’s already exploring his legal options against the company.



From the time of first noticing the fire and between removal of the pants and taking the phone out of my pocket and placing it outside, I inhaled A LOT of smoke

Hillard says he took a trip to the Apple store later that evening with the melted device, and details his dissatisfaction with Apple’s inability to address his damaged clothing nor offer a new phone on the spot rather than wait to ship it in as offered.

After spending about 20 minutes with an employee and answering questions, she removed the SIM card in effort to pull up my profile but it was melted.

The employee told me that she had to call the safety team and took the phone to a back room and did not return or update me on the status of my problem for about 40 minutes. After receiving this cold treatment with zero engagement from the team while waiting, I found a manager to locate the employee with my phone.

The employee resurfaced with the phone already packaged and told me that they were going to send it back to the engineering team. The manager then came up to me and said that this is the only way that I could receive a replacement phone.

I was given no other option and was told that nothing could be done for me in store if they could not keep the damaged phone. I asked about my clothing and they told me that they could make no promises until the phone was captured. I left one hour before the store closed and unsatisfied with the customer service in store, I took back the damaged phone and returned home.

The man claims he just purchased the iPhone XS Max around three weeks prior to the incident — leaving little room for long-term battery abuse to be playing a factor here.
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I think its a lot more likely for your car to catch fire than your phone, ever look at those statistics or any other device just phones concern you?
 
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What would be concerning is if this went the way of the note 7. But that is a long road that doesn’t see a lot of traffic.

Other than that this guy wants his cake etc, etc.

He wants a new device while holding on to his old device. Good luck in suing Apple Mr. Hillard.

I’m sure apple employees have been trained on how to deal with these situations and this I don’t think Mr. Hillard will get very far by being uncooperative.
 
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One out of millions of these devices made. Definitely not media worthy. There’s a better chance of being struck by lightning.
 
pixel_junkie said:
If this was about an Android phone, this thread would be bursting with comments saying how lame Android phones are. But it’s Apple, so it’s all rubish ;-)
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Apple are so powerful they are pretty immune in scenarios like this. Five tumble dryers caught fire in Europe and Hotpoint were lynched by the media and consumer watchdogs. An iPhone catches fire and consumers defend the company! Not many companies have that much power and control over their consumers.
 
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pixel_junkie said:
If this was about an Android phone, this thread would be bursting with comments saying how lame Android phones are. But it’s Apple, so it’s all rubish ;-)
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Or it’s because the situation sounds incredibly sketchy, such as the customer in question not allowing Apple to examine his device. And this is quite literally the only incident we’ve heard of, whereas Samsung’s situation was significant enough for Samsung themselves to order a mass recall. This is not even remotely the same situation.

The-Real-Deal82 said:
Apple are so powerful they are pretty immune in scenarios like this. Five tumble dryers caught fire in Europe and Hotpoint were lynched by the media and consumer watchdogs. An iPhone catches fire and consumers defend the company! Not many companies have that much power and control over their consumers.
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And again ... if this began happening on a large scale, people would be pissed off. People don’t blindly defend Apple like you’re imagining in Pretend Land. Just go look at the recent bent iPad thread. The XS is an incredibly expensive phone, and Apple customers have a lot less tolerance now that Apple devices are reaching the prices that they are.
 
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Spoon! said:
And again ... if this began happening on a large scale, people would be pissed off. People don’t blindly defend Apple like you’re imagining in Pretend Land. Just go look at the recent bent iPad thread. The XS is an incredibly expensive phone, and Apple customers have a lot less tolerance now that Apple devices are reaching the prices that they are.
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I’ve been contributing here for many years and know the culture by now. We’ve had these threads for years.
 
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BugeyeSTI said:
The article has no supporting evidence but the “claim” from the owner and pictures that show a phone with a cracked back, bent frame and a melted screen. With the lack of information and the customer refusing to let Apple engineers examine the device, everything is pure speculation at this point..
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I want to see the pants and burn marks on the “victim”
 
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Spoon! said:
Or it’s because the situation sounds incredibly sketchy, such as the customer in question not allowing Apple to examine his device. And this is quite literally the only incident we’ve heard of, whereas Samsung’s situation was significant enough for Samsung themselves to order a mass recall. This is not even remotely the same situation.


And again ... if this began happening on a large scale, people would be pissed off. People don’t blindly defend Apple like you’re imagining in Pretend Land. Just go look at the recent bent iPad thread. The XS is an incredibly expensive phone, and Apple customers have a lot less tolerance now that Apple devices are reaching the prices that they are.
Click to expand...

I’ve seen fans blindly defend Apple time and time and time again actually.
 
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The-Real-Deal82 said:
Apple are so powerful they are pretty immune in scenarios like this. Five tumble dryers caught fire in Europe and Hotpoint were lynched by the media and consumer watchdogs. An iPhone catches fire and consumers defend the company! Not many companies have that much power and control over their consumers.
Click to expand...

To be fair the Hotpoint recall was down to a manufacturing defect - from what I can gather fluff/lint could come into contact with the heating element potentially causing a fire.

Is there a manufacturing defect in the iPhone? If this iPhone did catch fire then why? We don’t actually know.
 
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PeteS1963 said:
To be fair the Hotpoint recall was down to a manufacturing defect - from what I can gather fluff/lint could come into contact with the heating element potentially causing a fire.

Is their a manufacturing defect in the iPhone? If this iPhone did catch fire then why? We don’t actually know.
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Which is why it’s best to know more before defending/criticising Apple etc. At this stage this thread suggests it’s a scam by the consumer rather than any real intrigue as to why it happened in the first place.
 
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