Long Island Man Spends 10 Days in Hospital After iPhone Explodes in His Pocket

from patch.com "Best of 2015"
A Lindenhurst man recently spent more than a week in the hospital after his iPhone spontaneously exploded in his pocket.

Erik Johnson had reportedly just arrived at his cousin’s wake on Valentine’s Day when his iPhone 5c exploded as he bent down to pick up a set of keys he had dropped.

“I felt the burn instantly and a cloud of smoke instantly,” the 29-year-old told News 12 Long Island. “I couldn’t get the phone out of my pocket, so I had to rip my pants off to get the phone away from me.”

Johnson suffered a third-degree burn the size of a football to to his upper left thigh and spent 10 days in a hospital burn unit. He returned home on Tuesday.

The story was first reported by ABC 7. Johnson told the TV station that he heard a pop and then saw smoke coming from his pocket when he reached down to pick up the keys.

Johnson says his leg caught fire and the intensity of the heat melted his pocket shut.

“A couple of people actually said they could smell my body burning,” Johnson told ABC 7.

Apple says it is investigating the incident. Johnson is planning legal action against the electronics giant.

“Even if this only happened this one time, that’s one time too many,” Johnson’s lawyer, Mike Della, said according to the Daily News. “What if this happened to a child?”

There have been other recent reports of exploding iPhones. In October, an Arizona man claimed his iPhone 6 burst into flames in his pocket following a minor rickshaw accident. Last February, a middle school student in Maine suffered minor injuries after her iPhone 5c exploded in her pocket.

Flaming iPhone 5c Battery Sets 13-Year-Old’s Pants On Fire

from cultofmac.com

Batteries are potentially volatile things, stuffed with electrochemical cells practically humming with electrolytes. Every once and a while, then, they’re sure to break down, and companies like Apple do literally everything in their power to make sure it doesn't happen.

Here’s why. An iPhone 5c that exploded in the pocket of a 13-year-old girl resulted in a fire so severe that she was rushed to the hospital with second-degree burns.

The iPhone was in the girl’s back pocket at the time, so it appears that the failure of the two-month iPhone might have been due to stress. She may have cracked it sitting down.

As a bigger guy who stuffs his iPhone in his own back pocket, I should probably pay attention to this girl’s misfortune before I set my ass on fire.

Consumer Reports Finds New iPad Gets Warm, Can't Charge Under Heavy Loads

from macrumors.com
Following up on reports from earlier today that the outer shell of the iPad 3 gets warmer than the iPad 2, Consumer Reports found that their iPad 3 reached temperatures up to 116 degrees after running Infinity Blade II for 45 minutes. 

The piece did note that the iPad felt "very warm but not especially uncomfortable if held for a brief period" during the testing process. In a statement earlier today, Apple said that the iPad was "operating well within our thermal specifications." 

We ran our test while the new iPad was propped on the iPad Smart Cover, plugged in, and after it had run Infinity Blade II uninterrupted for about 45 minutes. The device's 4G connection was not turned on, though its Wi-fi link was. The ambient room temperature was about 72 degrees. (Apple recommends not using the iPad in environments over 95 degrees.)

When unplugged, the back of the new iPad reached temperatures as high as 113 degrees Fahrenheit. It was only when plugged in that it hit 116 degrees. The hottest areas weren't evenly distributed throughout the iPad's back, but were concentrated near one corner of the display as shown in the images taken from the rear of the device above.

Potentially more interesting is Consumer Reports' note that their new iPad didn't charge at all when the game was running. In fact, the battery continued to drain slightly under the extremely heavy CPU and GPU load from Infinity Blade II. 

It's seems that under extremely heavy processor usage, the iPad is unable to draw sufficient power from its USB connection to both power the device and charge the battery simultaneously.