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Botched Repair Likely Cause of Combusting iPhone After Flight
aesoteric writes "The combustion of an Apple iPhone 4 after a regional flight in Australia was likely caused by a botched repair of the handset by an unauthorized repairer, according to air safety investigators in the U.S. and Australia. A small metal screw had been misplaced in the battery bay of the handset. The screw punctured the battery casing and caused an internal short circuit, making the iPhone emit dense smoke (PDF)."
After reading the snarky comments in the previous story about "holding it wrong", "it's an iPhone so it's a feature", and "ban all phones without removable batteries", it's interesting to see what happens if you wait for investigative facts to come out. But where would be the fun in that? Slashdot's comment section is more about cathartic bashing than insightful commentary. Of course, now we'll see accusations that Apple bribed the ATSB or fake-posts from pretend-battery-engineers telling us how the story is wrong or some other similar silliness...
"Sufferin' succotash."
The report says the shop that performed the repair was not an authorized Apple repair shop, and shows the device as having the old, dangerous standard Philips screws. Now we know why Apple has been so adamant about switching from regular Philips screws to five-sided screws--with the five sided, tamper-resistant screws, there is no chance that an unauthorized repair facility would be able to create an explosive condition by leaving a screw inside the iPhone.
Sent from my iPhone
Well, it's not the first smoke screen we've seen from Apple...
I guess the old saying 'don't let the smoke out' is true.
I have mod points and I am not afraid to use them.
GreatBunzinni, real name Rui Maciel, has been using anonymous posts to accuse almost 20 accounts of being employed by a PR firm to astroturf Slashdot, without any evidence. Using multiple puppet accounts, he mods up these anonymous posts while modding down the target accounts in order to censor their viewpoints off of Slashdot. GreatBunzinni accidentally outed himself as the anonymous troll who has been posting these accusations to every Slashdot story. For example, he wrote the same post almost verbatim, first using his logged-in account followed by an anonymous post days later. Note the use of the same script and wording.
It turns out GreatBunzinni is actually a 31-year-old C++/Java programmer from Almada, Portugal named Rui Maciel, with a civil engineering degree from Instituto Superior Técnico and a hobby working with electronics. He runs Kubuntu and is active on the KDE mailing list. Rui Maciel has accounts at OSNews, Launchpad, ProgrammersHeaven, the Ubuntu forums, and of course Slashdot.
Most of the users who Rui targets have done nothing more than commit the sin of praising a competitor to Google at some point in the past. Many of them are subscribers who often get the first post, since subscribers see stories earlier than non-subscribers. After one of Rui's accusations is posted as a reply, the original post receives a surge of "Troll" and "Overrated" moderations from his puppet accounts, while the accusatory post gets modded up. Often, additional anonymous posters suddenly pop up to give support, which also receive upmods. At the same time, accused users who defend themselves are modded down as "Offtopic."
Rui Maciel's contact information
Email: greatbunzinni@gmail.com, greatbunzinni@engineer.com, or rui.maciel@gmail.com
IM: greatbunzinni@jabber.org (the same Jabber account currently listed on his Slashdot account)
Blog: http://rui_maciel.users.sourceforge.net/
Programming projects: http://www.programmersheaven.com/user/GreatBunzinni/contributions
Known puppet accounts used by Rui Maciel
Galestar
NicknameOne
Nicknamename
Nerdfest
TheNarrator
Toonol
anonymov
chrb
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ilguido
psiclops
rreyelts
russotto
zidium
tl;dr: An Ubuntu fan named Rui Maciel is actively trolling Slashdot with multiple moderator accounts to filter dissenting opinions off the site.
So that unauthorized, non-dealer repairs can't be done on cars.
Oh, wait, we're talking about phones.
Even though it was an unauthorized repair, I wonder if the FAA will be reconsidering its iPad approval.
I wonder, and so what?
With the amount of energy they are squeezing into modern batteries, they are becoming almost as dangerous as a small diesel tank inside your phone or laptop. A random short can lead to a sudden release of all that trapped energy.
My AC stalker: " I personally agree with your posts most of the time, but that won't keep me from modding you troll"
First rule of any tech repair, 'authorized' or not:
1. Always have a method to account for every screw and part removed!
I'm not authorized to service my own laptops, one of them has been disassembled literally dozens of times, and yet this scenario is very unlikely to happen to me. I have sets of interlocking parts compartments that I have labelled specifically for teardowns of each laptop; the screws are grouped by progressive steps or layers of the teardown, and further by size in some instances. This is critical even for someone performing the same teardown every day, as no one is perfect, but it's especially critical for those first or one-time teardowns.
This screw got misplaced not because the guy was 'unauthorized' but rather because he was careless and foolish. Just because a person is indeed authorized (or degreed) is no exemption from carelessness and foolishness.
This also re-opens the argument that if Apple made the battery replaceable in the first place, then you wouldn't have to damage the phone to replace the battery.
Real SUV's don't have cupholders
It's 5:42 A.M., do you know where your stack pointer is?
I think it's extremely pleasant to read a relevant follow up of a previous article. In this day and age where hysterical or sensational trolling is the main reason for publishing any news items, a calm and sensible follow up where the facts are laid bare is rare. Kudos to Slashdot.
- Henrik
- when the Shadows descend -
Here is your mission should you choose to accept it. ....
This iphone will self-destruct in 10 seconds. Have a nice day.
When we people admit we are slaves to the Black Smoke?
All our devices run on it as long as the Black Smoke stays inside our devices.
One we let the Black Smoke out our devices no longer work.
I seen it with my own eyes!!
From the article: "The ATSB said the incident highlighted the dangers of using unauthorised repairers."
I would argue that the incident highlights the dangers of not making such devices easily serviceable, with detailed service information freely available.
Given that every time you take something apart and put it back together you always have parts left over (and it usually still works), if you take something apart and put it back together enough times you will eventually have two of them.
When I tear down small devices/laptops I occasionally find a loose screw in there because the threads stripped. This is especially true of portable devices which get a good bit of jostling, and usually around the battery, which swells and shrinks.
"The ability to delude yourself may be an important survival tool" - Jane Wagner -
Hey, I just had an epiphany: maybe this unauthorised service tech was the victim of too much football in his youth?
"this iphone will self destruct 10 seconds after an unauthorised repair"
Why the emphasis on "unauthorized repairer"? If I become an Apple "genius", does that mean all screws automatically go in their right spots? Am I immune to mistakes?
I'm a little segfault, short and stout.
The ATSB said the incident highlighted the dangers of using unauthorised repairers.
And this also should highlight manufacturers trying to restrict the scope of authorized repairers.
now we need to go OSS in diesel cars
You're screwing it wrong.
it;s apple magic just like the juju
http://www.vice.com/motherboard/mbd-vbs-the-sakawa-boys
Amazing, the crap people accept for non-repairable electronics.
"Authorized" and "Competent" are two completely different words, with completely different meanings. I want my electronics repaired by a "competent" repairer. I don't give a flip if they are "authorized."
A Chevy Volt battery pack is 16KWh.
No, it DOES make sense.
A user replaceable battery is in a separate compartment as the rest of the electronics (you only need to remove a back cover, which reveals a battery compartment. You don't need to disassemble the whole electronics to change the battery). The point is to avoid the end-user messing with other non replaceable parts when playing with the battery. But in that way, the battery is also isolated from the rest of the phone, thus a botched screen repair isn't very likely to let a loose screw get in contact with the battery. (You need to disassemble the whole electronics to replace the screen. But the battery is some other place any way).
Also, there's a higher chance that, if the battery replacement is made fool proof enough to be done by end-users, a little bit more protection against shorts is going to be included in the batteries. (Although that is not certain).
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
In-flight incident caused by an Apple user with a screw loose.