A photo of an apparently damaged iPhone 7 Plus appeared on Reddit on Wednesday, and some media outlets (as well as social media) have already compared this incident to Samsung's Note 7.
While we don't know what actually happened to this iPhone, chances are the incident is very different from what happened with Samsung devices – and there's a good chance the phone didn't even explode (at least not on its own).
Reddit user kroopthesnoop posted the first photo of the phone, claiming a coworker had pre-ordered it and it arrived in this condition. In the latest updates to his Reddit post, he claims that Apple and AT&T are aware of the incident and will send a new phone to replace it.
Rumors have been circulating that Apple is stealing features from Samsung, and judging by the collection of photos from Imgur and Reddit, it appears that the iPhone was severely damaged in transit. The packaging was punctured, and the phone itself had a large dent on the back, indicating that the damage was caused by a bump. The charred parts of the packaging indicate that the battery caught fire at some point, but this sometimes happens to batteries when they are put under too much pressure.
It's also possible that the iPhone actually exploded on its own, causing all the damage to the packaging, but that seems less likely—especially considering the phone was likely brand new and turned off during shipping. For comparison, Samsung's Galaxy Note 7 devices overheat and their batteries sometimes explode (apparently due to an unusual flaw in the manufacturing process), but mostly when the phone is on and charging.
It's entirely possible for an iPhone battery to overheat and even explode — it's happened before. But these have always been isolated incidents and — judging from what we know about this story so far — this isn't indicative of a larger issue.
