Can a mobile phone actually melt/burn/explode?

Robbo

Robbo

Robbo

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Daily Mail said:
iPhone battery spontaneously melts and leaks acid onto owner's hand but Apple refuse to replace it, New York woman claims

  • Shibani Bhujle went to a Manhatten Apple store to report the problem but they refused to replace the handset
  • Marketing manager said phone suddenly started to smell of burning and liquid was oozing out to the battery
  • Angry New Yorker says she expected more from the firm who told her to buy a new phone

A New York marketing executive claims her iPhone 4S battery melted this week oozing acid that destroyed her handset, but Apple are refusing to offer her any compensation.

Marketing manager Shibani Bhujle told Quartz.com the concerning meltdown occurred when the phone was turned off and sitting on her coffee table.

Despite her claims, Apple are refusing to replace the handset and have told her she needs to pay $200 for her insurance to provide a new phone.
Click to expand...

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-22...ple-refuse-replace-New-York-woman-claims.html

First of all, apologies for the Daily Mail sensationalist story. :p

Now, can a phone actually damage itself in this way? I remember last year a chap claimed his Galaxy S 3 exploded or similar (and this was debunked).

Surely this is just a woman trying to pull a fast one, how could a presumptively small acid leak make the phone look like this:

PI5RPxX.jpg


At the very least, she's damaged it before any 'acid' problems.
 
The problem is that you can't tell if she was using 3rd party accessories that may have damaged the phone in someway. You can never believe what people say these days.
 
This is more common than you might think in warmer climates. My 4s did the same thing on a recent trip to mexico. Can only presume it was something to do with the heat and humidity. Long (very long) story short, took it into the apple store in manchester, they popped the back off, saw the water sensors had not been triggered, scratched their heads in confusion, and gave me a replacement phone
 
i swear the instructions/etc say don't leave the phone in direct sunlight which is where i guess a lot of these "omg my phone exploded" comes from
 
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lithium-ion_battery#Safety said:
Safety

Lithium-ion batteries can rupture, ignite, or explode when exposed to high temperature. Short-circuiting a battery will cause the cell to overheat and possibly to catch fire. Adjacent cells may then overheat and fail, possibly causing the entire battery to ignite or rupture.
Click to expand...

So yep, it would seem so!
 
grudas said:
i swear the instructions/etc say don't leave the phone in direct sunlight which is where i guess a lot of these "omg my phone exploded" comes from
Click to expand...

This is more so the screens don't overheat these days. The real risk is the batteries which is why they are made to such a high standard by OEMs. Laptops had issues a few years ago (with an older design) which made more news.

In summary, possible but extremely rare with OEM / authorised equipment.
 
An example of people.

Toyota issue with brakes. They had MANY people coming in actually blatantly lying about dodgy brakes trying to get free car's out of Toyota. My father in-law in was of the most respected and trustworthy master technicians in the Tri-state area, and car's are only brought to him when no-one else can fix them. He was assigned the task of replacing all the recall brake parts because he was the only person they trusted. On every car that claimed to have had an accident due to faulty brakes (in the tri-state area) .... no problems were ever found.

People will try it on when they can.

Now, back to the other issue... batteries. Can they explode/burn/melt, the answer is yes. Is this woman lying? Who knows. Lithium batteries are actually pretty delicate beasts. A bad knock could potentially cause a battery to swell and fail. If the charging circuit was faulty, that is a potential failure point.
 
That is apple products for you ;) :D




:p

Unfortunately as said, leaving devices like this in direct sun light then you can expect stuff like that to happen. When I was away on a cruise last year, I always made sure that I covered my phone or that it was in the shade :o :p (also had a case mate tough on)
 
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^^ The problem is likely to be people buying cheap replacement batteries especially imports from china, etc. many of these lack the thermal/current protection circuits where appropriate and/or use cheaper/different tech cells strapped together inside a housing that resembles the original batery and so on.
 
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