Tons of Idiots Ruined Their iPhone 7s because of this Bogus Headphone Hack Video
Since many were upset that Apple’s newest device didn’t have a headphone input, a video surfaced on YouTube last week, boasting a clever hack -- literally drilling a headphone jack in your iPhone 7 with a 3.5 mm power drill bit. That video, made by known iPhone prankster and YouTuber Taras Maksimuk, went viral, eclipsing 10 million views. Unfortunately, the video was a complete ruse, and the internet's full of dummies who voluntarily impaled their expensive phones with a metal spike.
The Guardian reports that Maksimuk -- based in California but born in Ukraine -- has a litany of appallingly dumb iPhone hacks under his belt. According to his past videos, he’s implored people to throw their phones in the microwave to achieve longer battery life, and investigated the benefits of dousing the device with liquid nitrogen. The comments on his channel are not good, because they presumably come from people who’ve taken his experiments seriously.
In all fairness, Maksimuk -- who goes by TechRax on YouTube -- isn’t that bad of a guy. On Twitter, he makes it fairly obvious that his main exploit is “smashing technology for your pleasure.” So enter his domain at your own risk.
But unwitting YouTubers -- and presumably many of them, judging by the 36,000 comments underneath the video -- weren’t the only ones duped: Websites promoted the gag, following Maksimuk’s jest that the iPhone 7 maintains a hidden socket on its left side that can be converted into a headphone jack. All you need, Maksimuk claimed in the video, is a vice to hold the phone in place.
As one would expect, he’s catching a fair bit of venom in the angry comments section on YouTube, but Maksimuk doesn’t seem to mind that much. After all, if you’re going to take technological advice from a dude who bathes in 1,500 gallons of Coca Cola just for the hell of it, you’re probably getting hoodwinked. Just a thought.