iPhone battery explodes in QLD mobile phone repair store: Likely cause – Severe previous damage

iPhone Recall!  Not a chance.  While a video has emerged of an iPhone battery exploding in the hands of its owner there’s not going to be any recall folks – and without even seeing the phone in person I can tell that from the video.

Here’s the moment when a man standing at the counter of a QLD mobile phone store gets the shock of his life:

Awful thing to have happen, no doubt. But there’s one thing that these lithium ion batteries don’t like – that’s being punctured.

Now while we’ll have to wait for a full investigation from Apple, which if the man does hand his phone over to them will of course take place – we can learn a lot by looking at this video.

Firstly, from the first angle, from behind the store worker, you can see the man press on the screen. In no uncertain terms, that should not cause any issue at all.

But, from the second angle (the camera looking down) we can see the man’s phone screen is very badly cracked.  Very badly.

So there’s a strong chance that in some way the battery was damaged in whatever caused that screen to break, and the man pressing down on it simply pushed the final nail into the coffin, and off it went.

The force was so hard the screen was separated from the phone.

There’s other things to consider here before jumping to the recall conclusion.  Was it a genuine battery?  Was it a genuine screen?

If that’s not the first screen installed on the phone, and if the installation of a replacement wasn’t done to standard, there’s a probability that was a factor.

Regardless, there’s more questions here than answers, so let’s not jump to any conclusions.

Fortunately, the man, his partner and the store worker are all ok and there wasn’t a more serious fire as a result.

Video (and still images from it): ViralHog

(oh, and yes, the video wasn’t just posted online, it was given/sold to Viral Hog – who then make money for it’s owner)