Apple iPhones don’t REALLY feature self destruct but I wouldn’t be surprised if Apple decides this feature is necessary in the future.  It is not recommended to attempt ANY hardware hack to unlock your iPhone (it’s not really legal) but more importantly you can do serious damage to your phone and injure yourself in the process.  Someone attempting to unlock their new iPhone managed to send it up in smoke, literally.

What the person did is unclear but I present to you courtesy of iPhone Atlas a poor burned out, half exploded iPhone.

The story according to Hackintosh, “We were so happy, all the software part was done, so we started opening the iphone. The antenna cover was a bit tricky but eventually it came off. Then we started to open the metal cover (after taking out the 3 screws) and PUFF, up it went in smoke, I think my collegue must have touched something. It literally went up in black smoke. I was so hot that when I tried to pick it up I burnt my fingers. So, this is for sure the most difficult part of the whole process. I don’t know what he did, as I had just stepped out of the room to fetch something when I heard a scream…they got such a fright.”

So yeah, when the first words of an article are “attempt this at your own risk” or “may result in property damage” it’s probably best that you don’t especially with something as small and fragile as the iPhone.  I may have no qualms about opening up my computer to work on it but there’s room for error and plenty of space to work in, that’s not the case with any tiny device, iPhone or otherwise. 

Simply put, hack your iPhone, end up with a paperweight, don’t do it.

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Entry was posted on Friday, August 31st, 2007 at 12:10 pm under Apple, Cell phones.

Read more entries by Jonathan Schlaffer.
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