Tim Colburne did what just about everyone does with their iPhone — plugged it into a computer to charge over a USB connection, except in this case there was an issue. It turns out that after about three hours the iPhone caught fire.
According to the message that Tim posted on his blog;
“The fire started in the space between the lead and the phone, and resulted in a couple of pins fusing together.”
As you can see from the image, the heat was enough to burn the plastic on the plug. Tim suggested that “heat from the port pins” caused “small bits of fluff which can gather in the recesses of the phone and the charger” to start the fire. Personally, I am not sure I believe that theory, after all, if that were the case I would think that we would hear about this type of occurrence more often.
Strangely enough, he did mention that the phone seems to work otherwise, of course the plug was damaged which means that it cannot be charged or synced. In other words, it still works, but it may as well not. Lets just hope that there is a happy ending when he visits the Apple Store.
[a roman thought via Cult of Mac]
![Jailbreaking news: Trick iTunes into thinking you have iPhone OS 3.1.3 [UPDATED]](http://www.iphonefreak.com/wp-content/themes/freshnews/thumb.php?src=/wp-content/uploads/2008/10/iphone3gofficial.png&h=28&w=28&zc=1&q=80)
March 4th, 2009 at 5:02 pm
Man, what kind of screen shield is he using? I have a shield protector like that, but mine is full of gunk, dirt, and is not nearly that well applied.
Good work on that Tim.