14 DAY TRIAL // A woman from Colorado claims she woke up to a strange smell and “sizzling” and “popping” noises at about 6:30 a.m. one morning to find that her iPhone 4 had combusted inches away from her head.
She described the incident as “not quite an explosion, but an immense crackling,” and said the hotel room she was in had filled with smoke.
“It was an awful, putrid smell, almost like you were ingesting plastic of some kind,” she said in a phone interview with Mashable.
The woman, who asked not to be named in the interview, reportedly jumped from her bed to grab her laptop case to use it to manipulate the hot device. She allegedly threw it in the hotel room sink and had an electrician assess the situation.
There had been nothing wrong with the room’s power outlet, and the iPhone’s charging cable was also working fine, according to the report. What’s probably worse, the hotel smoke alarms failed to work.
The phone had been purchased a year back at an Apple retail store in Colorado, she said. Her decision to spread the word by talking to the press allegedly came after Apple’s refusal to publicly acknowledge the incident.
She admitted, “Maybe I’m naive, but I really hate when companies have to wait for fatalities or something awful to happen before they do something.”
Indeed, there’s fine line between an isolated incident and a widespread issue when it comes to the probability of a phone exploding, or bursting into flames. Apple wouldn’t shoot itself in the foot like that, but the company would admit if it had a general problem on its hands. It has done so in the past.
“It’s so important for me to have people know about this,” she added. “They’re giving me the classic corporate runaround, and I understand and respect that. But people knowing about this is the most important thing to me.”
Apple reportedly replaced the woman’s device with an identical model, albeit a brand new one. She had allegedly requested the newer version - the iPhone 4S. It is unclear why Apple chose not to replace the woman’s phone with the newer model, given the likelihood of her going to the press with this story.
Chances are this report would have never emerged, had Apple compensated the Colorado woman as requested. This decision might cost the company more now.
“I would have liked to have seen them say they understand this might not be something that affects everyone,” the woman added. “But, because it happened here, [they should] put up a precautionary statement to make people aware that if their battery becomes too hot to be wary.”