Ocoee teen says iPhone 7 Plus burned her stomach

Author: CNET, CHRIS MATYSZCZYK
Published:
MGN

A 17-year-old girl filed a complaint against Apple after she says her iPhone 7 Plus burned her stomach, according to WKMG.

Tina Pierre, of Ocoee, says she placed her phone on her stomach while she was waiting for a text, according to WKMG. After only a few minutes, she started to feel pain where she had placed her phone.

Pierre says the phone was hot to the touch and it left a burn mark in the same shape and size of her phone, according to WKMG. Apple sent Pierre another iPhone 7 Plus after she sent pictures of her scar to the company.

But Pierre says even the replacement phone gets warm to the touch, according to WKMG. Apple declined to comment on Pierre’s case.

We’ve become used to stories of phone batteries overheating and even exploding. Less common are tales of batteries causing consternation inside phone stores.

However, as Reuters reports, the Apple Store on Bahnhofstrasse in Zurich, Switzerland, was evacuated Tuesday morning after an iPhone battery overheated and began to emit smoke.

Swiss newspaper 20 Minuten identified the phone as an iPhone 6 Plus.

Around 50 customers and employees were evacuated from the store, Reuters reported, as fire crews and police arrived at the scene. The Apple employee who was removing the battery when it began to overheat sustained a minor burn on the hand, according to Reuters.

Neither Apple nor the Zurich police immediately responded to CNET‘s request for comment.

Reuters quotes a police statement that suggested “there was a slight build-up of smoke” in the store.

Phone batteries can overheat at any time. Infamously, Samsung had to withdraw its Note 7 from the market in 2016 — not once, but twice — after the batteries inside some devices overheated and exploded. The company attributed the problem to an “aggressive” battery design.

Unfortunately, batteries aren’t necessarily stable objects. Whether they’re in laptops or hoverboards, they can exhibit volatility.

Currently, when it comes to older iPhones (including the 6 Plus), Apple is offering to replace the batteries for $29 — not because they’re unstable, but because some may be slowing the phones excessively.

Although the iPhone 6 Plus in Zurich appears to have had its minuses, its plus may be that the incident wasn’t any worse.

Information from WKMG & CNET was used in this report. 

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