Apple to investigate iPhone 7 that 'blew up'

A dramatic video of a smoking iPhone 7 Plus is really freaking Twitter out.

Brianna Olivas says her rose gold iPhone 7 Plus exploded and began smoking Wednesday morning when her boyfriend grabbed his phone and began recording. The video, which Olivas shared on Twitter later that day, shows smoke pouring out of one side of the phone and the iPhone's case melting away.

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The video, which has already been viewed more than 1.26 million times, garnered a swift reaction, with more than 18,000 retweets and hundreds of replies. Amateur Twitter sleuths are even already attempting to diagnose what went wrong (one running theory is that Olivas' liquid-filled iPhone case somehow contributed to the issue, though there's no evidence to back that up.)

Olivas says the trouble began the day before when her iPhone 7 Plus, which she bought from Sprint in January, wouldn't turn on. She took the phone to an Apple Store where employees ran tests and told her everything was fine. The phone appeared to be working normally again.

That changed the next morning, she says, when her phone apparently caught fire while sitting on a dresser.

"The next morning I was asleep with my phone charging next to my head, my boyfriend grabbed the phone and put it on the dresser," she said via a direct message on Twitter. "He went the the [sic] restroom ... and from the corner of his eye he saw my phone steaming and [heard] a squealing noise. By the time he got over to the phone it had already caught fire, he quickly grabbed the phone and threw it in the restroom ... as soon as he threw it in the restroom is [sic] blew up and more smoke started coming out of the phone."

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While the dramatic video may bring to mind the now infamous Samsung Galaxy Note7, which was recalled after handsets began bursting into flames, there is no evidence what Olivas experienced is tied to a wider problem.

As we've learned from the Note7 fiasco and other incidents, high capacity lithium ion batteries, like those used in smartphones, can be prone to catching fire if they are damaged or have defective components. Again, we don't know if that's what happened in this particular instance, but it's not the first time an iPhone has reportedly caught fire.

Olivas says she has since turned the phone over to Apple. Reps have told her they are conducting tests and expect to know more within a week. For its part, an Apple spokesperson says the company is aware of the video. "We are in touch with the customer and looking into it."