iPhone XS Max Explodes in Pocket, Claims user from Ohio

Last updated June 16, 2021
Written by:
Nitish Singh
Nitish Singh
Tech News Writer
Image Courtesy of Pixabay

Josh Hillard, a man from Columbus, Ohio claims that his iPhone XS Max caught fire and exploded inside his pocket. The incident which allegedly happened on December 12, was reported by iDropNews.

Hillard narrates that he noticed a strange smell followed by intense heat from his rear pant pocket which also brunt his leg. He further states that his correspondence with Apple involving the matter wasn’t fruitful and that the company refuses to offer an immediate replacement. As of now, he is looking to take some legal actions against the techno giant.

According to Hillard, when he went into the Apple Store, the evening following the incident, they were not willing to offer an immediate replacement and told Hillard to wait for a new model to ship in. He was also dissatisfied as the representatives refused to compensate the damaged clothing.

Here is what happened in Hillard’s narrative:

After spending about 20 minutes with an employee and answering questions, she removed the SIM card in effort to pull up my profile but it was melted.

The employee told me that she had to call the safety team and took the phone to a back room and did not return or update me on the status of my problem for about 40 minutes. After receiving this cold treatment with zero engagement from the team while waiting, I found a manager to locate the employee with my phone.

The employee resurfaced with the phone already packaged and told me that they were going to send it back to the engineering team. The manager then came up to me and said that this is the only way that I could receive a replacement phone.

I was given no other option and was told that nothing could be done for me in store if they could not keep the damaged phone. I asked about my clothing and they told me that they could make no promises until the phone was captured. I left one hour before the store closed and unsatisfied with the customer service in store, I took back the damaged phone and returned home.

Here are some images of the exploded device:

exploded iPhone XS Max rear view

Courtesy of Josh Hillard via iDropNews

exploded iPhone XS Max front view

Courtesy of Josh Hillard via iDropNews

Apart from iDropNews’ report, we currently don’t have much information to gauge the authenticity of the event. A similar incident of an iPhone exploding happened back in November last year. Then an iPhone X device spontaneous exploded after receiving an OTA update to iOS 12.1.

So what do you make of the current news of an iPhone XS Max exploding? Let us know of your comments below, and don’t forget to also visit our socials on Facebook and Twitter for an additional dose of daily tech news.



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