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

Ya know...

[dazedNconfuzed]

Sometimes it is the customer's fault.

Re:Ya know...

[mea37]

I don't think you've thought through the end-to-end cost of providng a replacement. It's not just the material cost of pressing the disc.

If the retailer trades on a "no questions asked" return policy or something like that, then there's nothing wrong with taking advantage of it in a case like this; but otherwise, it's not reasonable to expect the retailer to absorb costs by treating end-user destruction of the product as a "valid return".

What GP could have done to minimize the cost of getting a replacement, was to deal further up the supply chain. Perhaps the manufacturer has a replacement program. You still shouldn't expect it to be free - there are still costs involving shipment, not to mention paying someone to process your request - but it may well be cheaper than buying a new copy at retail.

And if the manufacturer doesn't offer such a program? Well, they're under no obligation as far as I can tell.

Bottom line: GP may not have considered all available options, but his (her?) attitude is correct. Expecting others to absorb the costs of your mistakes is just greedy.

Re:Ya know...

[JAlexoi]

But why would he have to pay up for the license, if he already has it?
That is essentially the issue with "You do not buy the game, you buy the media and a license". He did not invalidate the license by scratching the media. Since "the media and a license" are two rather distinct items, as the suits say, why would he need to buy another license!?!?!?!?!?!

external forces + high numbers = problem

[davidwr]

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.

Re:external forces + high numbers = problem

[Sandbags]

It's actually extremely LOW compared to other phones, and further, "external force" is NOT a manufacturers concern. You're suggesting somehow that if a rash of people go around sitting on their G1s that Google should recall them???

There have been "in the single digits" reported cases of iPhones and iTouch COMBINED "exploding" There are over 80Million of these devices in circulation. Further, each and every case thus far has either been proven to be false (many of the supposed "exploding phones" did not even HAVE rup[tured batteries after examination), or the phones have not been turned over for examination and no explanation of why not is being provided (likely because they realized Apple called their bluff when they tried to cheat the warranty).

5 or 10 out of 40 million, not to mention the over 100 million additional iPods in circulation that also use a LiIon battery, is by no means in risk. in most states, your odds of winning a $1M plus lottery is higher then being the victim of an exploding device, let alone actually being HURT by one. More, the 3GS and all the new apple laptops do not USE LiIon batteries... They use LiPo, which is not subject to outgassing, cascade failure, or other hazards from being dropped, and the primary cause of LiIon failure (shorting), is not a problem with LiPo as they can handle the electric dispursion at extremely high rates without catching fire... They're basically safer than any other form of battery in circulation.

Re:External Forces = Pressure

[snl2587]

Of course you shouldn't expect it not to break. But an explosion? That's unacceptable.

Not quite

[dissy]

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.'

No, an "external force" is an end user putting the device in an oven at 350 degrees, or driving a nail through the battery.

Both are actions that no manufacturer should be held responsible short of specifically stating one can do such a thing when you can't.

"External forces" do exist, no matter how much you hate one company or another.

While I wouldn't trust Apples own investigation into which end of the spectrum the problem lies, just because you hate Apple does not mean that other end of the spectrum does not exist.

I am not making any claims to which end of things the exploding batteries from Apple falls under. I would tend to suspect only a very small percentage of complaints are from end users abusing their products, and most likely the batteries actually are failing under normal use, but I have no more data to go on than anyone else.

But to claim that it is not physically possible for an end user to abuse their device, and state that 100% of all such failures can not be the cause of anything other than Apple, is just stupid and dishonest.

Of course this is an Apple story, so I will just sit back and wait for the Troll mods and accusations of 'blaming users' or 'defending Apple' or some other crap I haven't done...

Re:Not quite

[Svartalf]

The real problem is in their determination. "External Forces" can be quite a few things. Including the two items you mention. However, if you're talking about someone sitting on the phone being one of them (mentioned earlier in this thread...) or perhaps talking "too long" on the phone such that the battery gets " warm " (Which most of the smartphones seem to get that way easily- and it's not the SoC doing it...), you're talking a different story. Which is it? Apple's not saying, which is where some of my concern lies. "External Forces" is a cop-out response. Spell it out as to why they exploded. If you're unwilling to do so, you're covering up something. Dell did. Sony did. Apple even did on their laptops on the Li-Ion batteries there. So why the evasiveness here?

Re:Not quite

[Major Blud]

Agreed. My wife works at an Apple retail store. You wouldn't believe the number of people who get their phone wet, and then deny doing so. A guy brought his 12 year old daughters phone into the store (why a 12 year old needs an iPhone is a different story all together). This phone obviously had water-damage, but the father denied it till the end...even after my wife managed to get the daughter to fess up after asking her a few questions. Even though the daughter admitted to dropping her phone in a vat of gatorade, the father still believed that this was not their problem and insisted that this was a hardware fault. In another case, a woman was talking on her phone in front of the store....in the rain. After taking it in, my wife looked at it and informed her of the obvious water damage. This lady completely denied ever having this phone come into contact with water, even after my wife stated that she just saw her using it in the rain. This lady stormed out of the store, and immediately called someone on the phone....while standing in the rain again. A guy I work with dropped his phone in the ocean and it immediately quit working. He made an appointment, went to the store, and was completely honest about what happened with the sales rep (not my wife). They comped his replacement phone for him. Moral of the story is, if you're honest and polite, you may get more help than if you go into the store and whine, complain, lie, and curse at the top of your lungs, which is probably happening in most of these exploding battery scenarios.

Re:Not quite

[Shimbo]

This lady completely denied ever having this phone come into contact with water, even after my wife stated that she just saw her using it in the rain.

That sounds perfectly reasonable to me. Maybe Apple world is full of shiny, happy people and it never rains there; in my book, if you can't use a phone just because it happens to be raining, it's defective.

Not really.

[Auroch]

For apple products, when the mantra is "It just works" ... and the software is built on a very small number of in-house designed products, it shouldn't be the customer's fault.

Take windows (or linux) - if you can't get something to work correctly, or the wrong drivers/settings fry your hard drive from parking the head incorrectly (or whatever), then you can blame the customer. But when apple designs the product, from start to finish, it should very rarely be the customer's fault, especially when in normal usage.

Normal usage, you ask? In my world, normal usage means occasionally (very infrequently) leaving a laptop on inside a case, and expecting it *not* to fry because of poor thermal design. It also involves getting the occasional splash of liquid on my gadgets. And, you know, keeping my phone in my pants, where it will heat up if it isn't designed properly.

Normal usage is *not* exploding batteries, exceptionally short lived LCDs or GPUs that don't live long unless the fan is on full speed, all the time. And when these thing occur, I expect (and have always received) good support from my hardware vendor.

And no, I do not buy apple. Sure, they have great warranty service... if you buy the applecare. But I can get that sort of extended warranty from almost any vendor - The difference? Those vendors don't have retail locations like apple.

I blame Nick Farrell...

[Slur]

...for being a complete dick. Not everyone who owns an Apple product is a black-shirted zealot, and it's obnoxious to paint all of a company's customers with such a broad brush. Nick is just feeding the trolls by echoing the same stupid tropes that unoriginal people endlessly repeat in forums and comment sections all over the web.

A decent writer - editorial or otherwise - should discuss the merits and facts of the situation without bringing in useless and alienating invective. He may get a few yuks from the dumb crowd and incite a colorful flame war in the comment section, but he certainly won't gain any deep or lasting respect as a journalist. But I suppose this is just a temporary thing until he gets a job he actually cares about or finishes that sci-fi novel he's been working on.

Oh, now look, I'm doing it too. Dammit!

Re:Track record

[gnick]

I actually see the Sony-battery recall as being a reason to believe Apple on this one. With the Sony recall, they realized that there was a problem with their batteries; they were worried that it was going to bite them in the ass; and they issued a recall. That's responsible to the public and to the stock-holders. In this case, they looked into it and decided that there was no recall necessary. The fact that they issued a massively expensive recall before and aren't doing the same thing now tells me that they believe what they're saying.

Note: I'm not an Apple fanboi. To my knowledge, I do not nor have I ever owned an Apple product.

Re:External Forces = Pressure

[commodore64_love]

Precisely.

I wonder what explanation Apple's engineers have for the laptops that spontaneously smoked & sizzled? I think it's clear the flaw lies in the Lithium battery not the user, and Apple should simply SAY that rather than deny it. Like so: "Dell recently started it's corporate blog called dellone2one.com. One of posts is dedicated to Dell's infamous "flaming notebook" from Osaka. Dell thinks that it was a fault in a lithium ion battery cell, which caused laptop to burn.

"Dell's engineering teams are working with the Consumer Product Safety Commission and a third-party failure analysis lab to determine the root cause of this failure and to ensure we take all appropriate measures to help prevent a recurrence", says post. LINK: http://laptoping.com/wp-content/flaming_laptop.jpg LINK: http://gizmodo.com/gadgets/laptops/sony-beancounters-tremble-as-own-vaio-batteries-come-home-to-roost-208031.php LINK: http://gizmodo.com/gadgets/laptops/gizmodo-reader-witnesses-ibm-laptop-catch-fire-at-lax-201115.php

I'm glad all my laptops use NiMH, since it's been around quite a big longer (almost 20 years) and the bugs have been removed. I'm sure Lithium batteries will be a great product to own... circa 2020.

Re:normal for Apple

[Attila Dimedici]

Thanks for spreading more FUD and making a 3rd party vendor's firmware issues look like Apple's fault...

I thought the whole argument for why Mac OS can only be used on Apple built computers was because that allowed Apple to control all of the hardware it ran on and avoid these types of problems?