Apple Blames 'External Forces' For Exploding iPhones

Shome writes "Apple has stated that there is no evidence that recent iPhone explosions reported by users are connected to overheating of batteries. It may be stated that French consumer affairs authorities have started their own investigation on the reported explosions, some of which have caused minor injuries to the users, and are studying the phone's safety features. The Inquirer runs a piece that blames Apple for blaming its customers. 'This mysterious force is not God, or a rival religion, nor does it require any metaphysics to understand. An "external force" is just Apple's term for the black shirted people who believe that everything that Apple makes is wonderful. It is what other companies call their "customers," writes Nick Farrell.'"

Comments

normal for Apple

[alen]

check out the Macrumors forums. people bought iMacs a few years ago and LCD's started to go after the warranty expired. The Genius's called the customers crazy. Only reason Apple payed out money with the nvidia chipsets is because they got the money from nvidia.

there was a hard drive clicking issue with current MBP's and 7200rpm drives, including freeze ups. people took them to Apple stores and were told it was a feature.

Re:normal for Apple

[not already in use]

I bought a first gen MacBook Pro. During manufacturing there was so much thermal paste put on the processor, graphics chip and northbridge that it caked out onto the motherboard and was actually insulating from the copper heatsink. It was a well known manufacturing issue that Apple never acknowledged even though every 1st gen up to a certain point was affected by it. I have pictures of mine, personally, that I took apart, voiding the warranty, to fix.

Re:External Forces = Pressure

[gnick]

I know little about these specific explosions, but modern high-density batteries pack a heckuva lotta energy into a tiny package. If mechanical damage causes an electrical cell-short, you can expect that energy release to be pretty dramatic. If not an explosion, certainly a rapid heat discharge. That's tough to design around unless you just make the thing bigger and heavier to withstand the pressures exerted by the worst-case ass-press.

Re:external forces + high numbers = problem

[Registered Coward v2]

Sure, it may be "external forces" like accidently dropped phones, high- or low humidities or temperatures, or what-not, but if the iPhone explosion rate is higher than competitive phones, you have to ask yourself why iPhones are so fragile.

Come on Apple, find the cause and unless it's customers deliberately abusing their phones, fix it.

Let's see - single digit reports, all in one country; hardly enough data to determine anything, other than a few screens broke in France. No evidences of "explosions" Apple should certainly look into it, but at this point it's hard to tell what is wrong or who's fault it is. Until Apple gets the phones, pulls them apart and see's what happened everyone, including Apple, is guessing.

If it is an iPhone problem, I wonder why the issue is so localized; I'd expect a design flaw to show up more often and more evenly spread over a production run.

Personally, my experience with Apple addressing issues that point to design flaws is good - I've had 2 MB's keyboards replaced, free of charge with 1 day turnaround, due to cracking issues. One was way out of warranty, yet they fixed it for free.

Re:External Forces = Pressure

[Sandbags]

Have you see the pics? These phones have severely cracked screens, but 90% of the glass is still there... This is not exactly an "explosion" though the imact in a few cases caused the LiIon battery pack to outgas or "pop"

In every case reviewed thus far however, "external pressure" clearly indicated the force was a twisting or bending, or an impact on the glass itself pushing in. The glass is not boken outwards, so any glass discharged from the device, per the evidence presented, was likely shot up from the impact with ground, or a couple of kids were wrestling over the device and bent it in such a was to send glass shards outward.

NO evidence of the battery, or the glass itself, being a fault has been shown in any of these cases. Though little is public information, Apple has libberously documented each suspected case for a device returned to them for examination, and it;s consistant evidence.