Back in September this year, Apple launched its iPhone XS, iPhone XS Max, and iPhone XR smartphones. Toting a massive 6.5-inch OLED panel, the XS Max is, quite literally, the company’s biggest smartphone ever. Its price tag is also equally big, with the top-of-the-line 512GB internal storage model costing a staggering Rs 144,900 in India. However, it seems Apple’s super-premium smartphone isn’t without its issues. And if the newest report is anything to go by, those issues, even if isolated, aren’t minor.
According to iDrop News, a man from Columbus, Ohio, United States, claimed that his three-week old iPhone XS Max caught fire while in the pocket of his trousers. The man, identified in the report as J. Hillard, said that during his lunch break, he noticed a strange smell coming from his smartphone, kept in a rear pocket of his trousers. Hillard further said that he felt a lot of heat and burning sensation on his skin, which was followed by green and yellow colored smoke coming out of the iPhone XS Max. The smartphone owner had to quickly remove his trousers (which got damaged) and shoes, following which a colleague helped him douse the fire with a fire extinguisher.
“From the time of first noticing the fire and between removal of the pants and taking the phone out of my pocket and placing it outside, I inhaled a lot of smoke. Later in the day, the team told me about the video that the office security camera captured,” Hillard was quoted as saying by the iDrop News report.
Following the incident, the (obviously) furious owner of the destroyed iPhone XS Max went to his nearby Apple Store and demanded a call from the customer relations team. After being made to wait for almost an hour, Hillard was told that the only thing the store could do was to offer him a replacement smartphone.
Unsatisfied with the treatment meted out to him, the owner reportedly returned home with the damaged smartphone and called up Apple Care. After explaining everything to a specialist over the phone, sharing photos of the destroyed iPhone XS Max, and engaging in multiple follow-up calls, he was essentially offered the same thing – a replacement smartphone. He denied the same, saying that a new phone isn’t an acceptable solution for what he had to go through. He’s now contemplating legal action against Apple for the same.
Watch: Apple iPhone XS, XS Max Hands On
These past few months haven’t really gone well for Apple. Last month, another user had claimed that his Apple iPhone X exploded while in the process of upgrading to iOS 12.1. Although incidents like these aren’t widespread, they do erode the confidence of customers (both new and existing) in the company and its products, even if a little. With the competition in the smartphone world set to intensify even further in 2019, it remains to be seen how Apple will fare next year.
