Video Shows Man Biting iPhone Battery, Explosion In His Hand

Smartphones live in people’s pockets and hands, so it seems reasonable to expect that they would not explode very often. Nevertheless, it happens; Samsung dealt with widespread controversy and recalls back in 2016 when the then-new Galaxy Note 7 proved dangerous to anyone who bought it for this reason.

A viral video out of China caught showcased something similar happening on a security camera in an electronics store, Taiwan News reported. In the video, which was originally posted by Miaopai on Jan. 20 before accumulating millions of views, a man attempted to test out a replacement battery for his iPhone. For some reason, he decided the best way to go about this was to bite down on it.

The result was probably not what he expected, though he likely felt vindicated for not buying the battery.

Taiwan News said nobody was injured, which is fortunate considering the battery went from being in a man’s mouth to exploding in a second or less. It is hard to tell what, exactly, happened in the video or if it is even real, CNET noted. Back in late 2016, CeeLo Green faked a phone explosion in a video for publicity, so one should cast suspicion on anything like this. That said, there are enough real examples of phone batteries exploding that it cannot be immediately dismissed as fake.

As Taiwan News pointed out, the man could have been looking to buy a discounted iPhone battery after Apple instituted a price drop at the end of December. Replacement iPhone batteries became significantly cheaper after Apple was slammed with accusations of “planned obsolescence,” or intentionally designing devices to die earlier than they could in order to encourage customers to buy new models more frequently.

The man could have known Chinese stores often carry fakes and just wanted to make sure he was getting the genuine article. If the video is real, he may have been proven right, albeit in a dangerous way.