9to5Mac colleagues reported a very interesting story related to an accident occurred in recent days which involved an unfortunate (former) owner of Apple Watch Series 7 (here our review). The user in question remained anonymous (note: below you will find some videos posted on his YouTube channel, but he is not sure if the one shown is his real name) and told how his Apple Watch exploded and how the intervention of the Cupertino house was certainly not among the most timely and effective, but let’s go in order.
According to what emerges from the story, it all started when the user noticed that his Apple Watch was getting hotter than usual while wearing it. Upon closer inspection it emerged that the back of the wearable was spun and watchOS displayed a warning urging him to turn off the watch due to high temperatures. All this took place in a home environment with a perfectly normal temperature, that is about 21 ° (70 ° F).
After removing the watch, the user contacted the Apple support service and within a few steps his call was transferred to a higher level manager than usual, who asked him not to touch the clock until he received further details from the company, but without providing an immediate solution.
It didn’t take long for the situation to degeneratein fact, the next day the owner of the Apple Watch found it even hotter and with it shattered screen from the heat. As soon as he tried to grab it to take new photos to send to Apple, the watch has started popping and emitting smoke, until it explodes just as the user threw it out of the window. Many of these moments have been immortalized by photos and videos that you find in this article.
The damage caused by the Apple Watch concerns some burns on the sofa of its owner, who also had to go to the emergency room to make sure you don’t have a lead poisoning principle, due to the inhalation of the fumes produced by the wearable and previous contact. Fortunately, the Apple Watch does not include quantities of toxic material so high that it causes poisoning, which is why the check failed.
At that point Apple was contacted with the latest updates on the case and the company confirmed that the case would take top priority and that the user would be contacted the following Monday (so it happened last week), however the company she only made herself heard on Wednesdayseveral days late.
Apple therefore organized the withdrawal of the watch for further analysis at its laboratories and in doing so it handed the user a document with which he should have undertaken to keep the events secret. Obviously the owner of the Apple Watch he refused to sign the paperswhich is why we get to know the case today via 9to5Mac.
Surely one emerges from this story unclean handling of the affair by Apple, who probably underestimated the problem in both calls. The first time didn’t assume right away that the Apple Watch in question could get worse quickly – he certainly should have made sure to recover it before the explosion, in order to avoid that the user could be exposed to risks -, while in the second case she did not intervene respecting the deadlines announced by herself.
Even the request not to talk about the fact is certainly a fall in style, although it is understandable that the company tries to prevent a similar case from finding a lot of media space (which has promptly happened). It must be said that everything worked out in the best waybut if the explosion had happened overnight it is possible that the damage would have been much more serious, with consequences potentially tragic.
In these cases, the advice is always that of immediately be wary of any electronic product that reaches particularly high temperatures. When this happens, it is always good to isolate it to avoid inhaling any fumes produced and to ensure that, if there is a risk of catching fire, the device is not in contact with other potentially flammable surfaces, such as wooden furniture, fabrics and more.
