Apple Investigates Case Of Smoking iPhone 7 Plus Captured In Viral Video
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In the video, which has since gone viral and contains NSFW language, Brianna Olivas is in disbelief at what is unfolding before her eyes. According to Olivas, the phone was charging next to her head while she was asleep, until her boyfriend walked over and put the phone on the nightstand. Moments later, the phone was making a squealing noise and then smoked started coming out of the phone. Her boyfriend threw the phone into the bathroom, which is where the video picks up.
So my IPhone 7 plus blew up this morning 🤗 was not even using it, literally no explanation for this pic.twitter.com/sQ8CJt4Y69
— Bree✨ (@briannaolivas_) February 23, 2017
Interestingly enough, Olivas had taken the iPhone to an Apple Store Genius the day before its battery had a meltdown according to Gizmodo, where she told them that it “looked weird when it turned on”. However, the Apple Genius ran some diagnostics on the iPhone 7, determined that it was functioning properly and send Olivas on her way.
@briannaolivas_ pic.twitter.com/MLllo8DvSa
— Bree✨ (@briannaolivas_) February 23, 2017
However, following the flare-up, Apple quickly gave Olivas a new smartphone and said in a statement, “We are in touch with the customer and looking into it.”
Now before you say that she might have been using a third-party charger or cable which could have contributed to the battery failure, Olivas says that she was using an official Apple charger. So, for now, this looks to be an isolated incident, although one that Apple most likely wants to study carefully to ensure that something like this doesn’t happen in the future.
And given the relatively small number of reported iPhone battery fires over the years, it’s unlikely that it will be elevated to the level of the Galaxy Note 7, which even managed to grab presidential attention. Last October, former President Barack Obama joked (referencing Obamacare), “Think about it, when one of these companies comes out with a new smartphone and it has a few bugs — what do they do? They fix it; they upgrade it. Unless it catches fire. Then you pull it off the market”.
