A Vodafone retail store in Canberra, Australia was forced to evacuate earlier this week after an iPad demo unit burst into flames, according to News.com.au. While no one was injured, the news outlet says that the “explosion” was large enough that the city’s firebrigade was called to the scene….
Here’s News.com.au with the report:
” A burst of flames” appeared from the charging port of an iPad demo model, a Vodafone spokesperson confirmed to news.com.au.
The firebrigade was called in after the store filled with smoke and sparks continued to appear from the charging port.
No staff members or customers were injured during the incident, Vodafone confirmed.”
The site goes on to say that an Apple representative visited the Vodafone store on Wednesday to collect the device to try and determine what exactly caused the incident, but not much else is known. And as you can imagine, the company has thus far refused any requests for comments.
Keep in mind that this isn’t the first time that an Apple device has caused safety concerns this year. Back in July, a Chinese woman died after reportedly receiving an electric shock from her iPhone. And just a few weeks later, a Chinese man was left in a coma after a similar incident.
Apple went on to blame “unauthorized third-party adapters” for the incident, and launched its ‘Takeback’ initiative, which discounted official power adapters to $10 with trade-in. But with this device being in a retailer store, it’ll be interesting to see what, if anything, it has to say this time.
Note that the original News.com.au story said the tablet that caught fire was a new iPad Air demo model, but it has since changed it to simply “an iPad demo model.”