Wednesday, July 17, 2013

Did an iPhone Electrocute a Woman?


It seems every tech blog is going crazy over a woman who was electrocuted by her iPhone 5. She was apparently charging it when the phone rang. When she went to pick it up, she was electrocuted. Or so this story claims.

If you've been unlucky enough, you may have gotten a chain email with a story identical to this a few years ago. I've also seen it recently on Facebook. Snopes, great debunker of urban legends, looked into the emails, and found them to be fake, no one was being electrocuted by their phones. This new report falls directly in line with the urban legend, which causes me to question the validity of it.

China hasn't been too happy with Apple as of late, and the Chinese media, ran by the Chinese government, has said some mostly exaggerated things about Apple in the past. Don't think for a second that the Chinese government wouldn't lie or hide the truth.

Apple is currently investigating the matter, though it may or may not be true. Now, don't get me wrong, it is possible that someone was electrocuted from their phone. Perhaps there was a power surge, the cable was frayed, or the power adapter was broken. One version of this story says that the woman was getting o it of the shower, and could have been wet when touching the phone. But personally, I think this story is nothing more than a ploy to make Apple products look as untrustworthy as the Chinese knockoffs of them.
This story shares far too much in common with every hoax like it, such as answering a phone call, the warning at the end of the story not to answer calls while the phone is plugged in, and even the age of the person who was electrocuted. If true, it is a tragedy, and hopefully the cause is discerned. If untrue, then making up stories about the tragic death of a young woman is a pretty sick way to try to make a company look bad. Neither is good, but hopefully this story is false and no one was injured.

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