[Helen]

Will cut to the chase,

Mt iphone 3GS was on charge upstairs, when the electrics in the house cut out. When I checked, the charger had blown itself completely out of the plug. When I looked at the phone, the screen was flashing when i touched it. I had just received multiple sms (about 20) off "unknown" - freaked me out!

So I have reset to factory defaults, and it cleared the flickering screen.

Has my iphone been hacked? has it been fried?

[Sogo7]

Sounds a defective 'wall wart', such things are not completely unknown and have had my fair share unplug themselves from the wall with explosive vigour. The modes of failure vary but ultimately boil down to cost-cutting construction whereby output regulators and input varistor protection are deliberately omitted from the design as these refinements would only benefit one person in several thousand.

Specifics depend upon the type of charger, if it's a heavy device then the winding of the transformer has shorted due to vibration caused by poor winding. Smaller lightweight chargers use a capacitor to perform some electrical trickery to drop mains voltages [240volts] to a more useful 5-6volt, these will either explode or vent gas rapidly.

With any luck the charging circuit of the phone has some protection against transient voltages and no harm has been done. If it has done damamge then you might get another phone out of apple, but only if you can show it was their charger and not some other third party device at fault.

Alternatively the CIA has identified you as an enemy of freedom and the phones battery will explode the next time you hold it to your head

This post has been edited by Sogo7: 12 June 2011 - 01:02 AM