Late last week, several news organizations reported that a new iPad Air on display in an Australian Vodafone shop exploded and continued to spew smoke and flames until the fire department arrived to extinguish the blaze. The Australian media reported that flames began spewing from the tablet’s charger port and the device continued to erupt with sparks, causing shop workers to evacuate the store and call in the fire department. No one was injured. According to multiple Vodafone spokespeople speaking with Mashable, however, there’s a huge hole in the story: The exploding iPad Air wasn’t an iPad Air.
“It was an earlier generation iPad with Retina display model — not one of the more recently launched devices. Apple is investigating the cause,” the spokesperson reportedly said.
“[I] can confirm it was not an Air; all I know it was a Retina model, so a 3 or 4,” another Vodafone spokesperson told the blog. “Apple has taken the device for investigation, so we won’t know any more until they do. Apple has taken the device for investigation, so we won’t know any more until they do.”
Anytime an iPad explodes and the fire department has to be called in, it’s certainly a troubling story. But it looks like new iPad Air buyers can sleep a little easier at night knowing that their houses are likely safe if they leave their iPad Air tablets plugged in overnight.
As for those of you with older iPad models, it might be a good idea to sleep with one eye open until Apple inevitably provides an explanation that somehow shifts the blame to Vodafone shop employees.
