A teenager in suburban Melbourne, Australia got something of a surprise on Wednesday evening when his iPod exploded after an accidental adventure in the family washing machine.
After experiencing breathing difficulties from the apple-flavoured fumes emitted by his sodden MP3 player, paramedics were called and the offending iPod has been taking away for testing.
"His mother did the washing and the iPod was in the clothing so it went through the washing machine," said Peter Philp, a Country Fire Authority spokesman.
"It wasn't working, the young fella tried to undo it or fix it with a screwdriver and at that stage there was an explosion, or more of a pop.
"It was more smoke than fire but it did leave a burn mark on the cover."
Sometimes a water-logged laptop can recover if you leave it to dry fully before turning it on. However, it would seem in this case that there was still water present, which may have caused a short circuit when the boy did what most of use would've done: cracked it open with a screwdriver.
An Apple spokesman was not available to confirm rumours that the replacement for the iPod Shuffle would be called the iPod SpinDry.
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