iPhone 7 meltdown: Apple investigates claims

Apple has started investigations from an Australian man who claimed his iPhone 7 caught fire and destroyed his car.

Surfer Matt Jones had stated that while he had gone off to surf, he had left his iPhone 7, bought last week, wrapped in a pair of trousers in his car on the beach. As he returned, he saw smoke billowing out from the car.

Footage taken from another phone showed the front seats, dashboard and stick melted and charred. Eventually the surfer was able to remove what was left of his clothes. Jones said that he had not dropped the phone or physically damaged it, as happened to a Sydney man who fell off his bike and suffered burns from his iPhone. He also stated not using a non-Apple charging device.

Lithium-ion batteries can burst into flames because of physical damage or overheating. Apple’s largest rival, Samsung, has begun an international recall of 2.5m Galaxy Note 7 devices after more than 100 devices started smoking, sparking, or caught fire. The United States government has banned Note 7 phones from air travel, and several airlines have installed fire-containment bags as precautions for overheating smartphones.