Exploding smartphones are nothing unusual these days, but here we'll talk about what's believed to be the first phone to burst into flames while charging.
It happened with the JioPhone 4G, a phone made by the Indian company Reliance Jio and specifically aimed at the local market.
Images of the results posted and then deleted on Twitter show the phone with a huge hole in the back where the battery normally would be.
A report from PhoneRadar indicates that the company has already conducted an investigation, and one of the experts who looked into the incident was quoted as saying that the battery worked even after the explosion.
Additionally, a photo showing the charger appears to reveal that the charging cable experienced some kind of melting near the connector, so if overheating did indeed occur, it wasn't at the battery site.
The company says the phone that burst into flames wasn't actually defective and claims what happened was "sabotage." That means someone intentionally caused the phone to explode, they say.
“JioPhones are designed and manufactured to global standards and each phone goes through a rigorous quality control process. The incident in question has been reported to us. Our initial investigation indicates that this is a case of deliberate sabotage. The damage to the device appears to have been caused intentionally. The incident, as well as its timing, has been engineered by vested interests to abuse the brand. We will take appropriate action based on further investigations,” a company spokesperson said.
At this point, it's hard to tell who's telling the truth, but it seems phones have the potential to be hacked just as easily as smartphones. Tracking every device that's charging doesn't just seem like a good idea, it's something we all need to do.
