14 DAY TRIAL // Last week, news broke that an iPad Air on display at a Vodafone store had exploded and started a fire, prompting the wireless operator to call the fire brigade. As it turns out, the tablet was not an iPad Air.
“It was an earlier generation iPad with Retina display model — not one of the more recently launched devices. Apple is investigating the cause,” a Vodafone Australia spokesperson tells Mashable.
Another representative for Vodafone Australia added, “Can confirm it was not an Air; all I know it was a Retina model, so a 3 or 4 Apple has taken the device for investigation, so we won't know any more until they do.”
Excepting the bad piece of information regarding the tablet model, both statements reflect last week’s reports, in that Apple rushed someone over there to collect the tablet and analyze it.
The news shouldn’t put off your appetite for a new iPad purchase, regardless of the model you prefer, as there have been little to no reports regarding fires caused by iPads.
iPhones, on the other hand, have been involved in many more incidents like this one. One such occurrence was in China, where a flight attendant named Ma Aliun was shocked to death by her iPhone. A counterfeit charger was the established cause of death.
There have been a few reports of spontaneous iPhone combustion, with some users even videotaping their mishaps.
The main cause is usually (always?) the battery. Some batteries may have flaws which, in time, lead to a swelling of the cell and eventually an explosion.
If that iPad was a third-generation model, as suggested by one of the Vodafone employees, the cause of the explosion may well be the fact that the tablet had been connected to a charger for over a year.