A couple of weeks ago I was given a free iPhone 2g (the very first iPhone that came out) and I set it up and gave it to Amber to use. It only had one problem – the battery was dead. It would only last an hour or so.

I found a new battery for $13 on the internet that came with all of the needed tools and a youtube video showing you how to change the battery out on your own.

I completed step one of the process (remove the black plastic plate) and moved on to step two. Step two was something along the lines of “insert a flathead micro screwdriver and wiggle it back and forth. Use force.” So I did it very lightly, thinking that using force was a bad idea.

Within a half of a second, the iPhone literally shot fire out of the sides and began to smoke like crazy. It was burning my hand so I dropped it on the table…then it burned the table. Couper was in the room and started screaming, “OH NO OH NO OH NO…DAAAADAAAAA!!!”

When it finally stopped smoking, I grabbed it and threw it in the sink and ran water on it to cool it off and it started smoking again.

Lesson of the week: Don’t try to change the battery on your iPhone. Oops. Check out the pics and video. The video does NO JUSTICE to what actually happened. I only caught the very end of it on video because I was more worried about not setting our house on fire.

iPhone catches fire and shoots smoke from Zak White on Vimeo.