Australian Man Says His iPhone 7 Exploded in His Car

Apple is investigating after an Australian man said his iPhone 7 burst into flames.

An Australian surfer came back from catching a wave Thursday to quite an unpleasant surprise. His car had been severely burned—thanks, he claims, to his iPhone 7.

Surf instructor Mat Jones was out for a (work) day at the beach. He had left his phone, wrapped inside a pair of pants, in his car. He told 7 News Melbourne what he saw when he returned.

"As I look into my car you could not see inside the car. All the windows were just black," he said.

It didn't take him long to discover the culprit—his iPhone. "Ash was coming from inside the pants," he recalled. "Once you unwrapped the pants, the phone was just melting inside of it." 

Batteries like the kind used in the iPhone can, in fact, light themselves on fire. It's extremely rare, but it can occur, according to experts, due to excessive charging, heat, or piercing. 

Apple says that it is investigating the issue, but had no comment otherwise. 

This is not the first case of an allegedly exploding iPhone—or even the first such case in Australia, for that matter. Back in August, a man in Sydney suffered third-degree burns when his iPhone exploded while in his pocket.

But don't go running to the competition just yet. Samsung's Galaxy Note 7 phones exploded so many times that they were subject to a worldwide recall. With phones exploding and the "internet of things" turning against us, it seems like Terminator 3 may turn out to be more prescient than we realized.

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