The man, referred to as J. Hillard, said that the incident took place during his lunch break, when he noticed a strange smell coming from his phone, which also happened to be inside his rear pants pocket. It wasn’t until Hillard felt a large amount of heat and burning on his skin that it became clear something was wrong with the device. No sooner after that, Hillard said that “green and yellow smoke” began popping out of his phone. At this point, Hillard made the decision to exit the lunch room and remove his pants. Where another colleague in his company then helped by putting out the fire with an extinguisher.
With the fire put out (literally and figuratively), Hillard naturally decided to try and get the issue settled at the local Apple Store. Unfortunately, what he got was a first hand experience with the level of bureaucracy within Apple. Despite having explained his situation and presented his melted iPhone XS Max, Hillard was met without any updates or personal service for approximately 40 minutes. Only to be greeted by the same employee, who told him that the store would have to keep the damaged phone to get a replacement phone. To add insult to injury, Hillard was also told that if he didn’t let them take the phone, they could make no promises that any progress would be make with the phone, let alone his affected clothing.
Hillard made it clear that he wasn’t just looking for the a replacement phone. In this situation, he wanted an explanation over how his phone exploded, as well as proper compensation for his ruined clothes and shoes. Plus restitution to cover his wireless service that he could not use when the explosion melted his SIM card. (Source: iDropNews via 9to5Mac, Hot Hardware)
