Slashdot Mirror
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.
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?
Why would they? A airplane mechanic can botch a repair job on the airplane. Should they ban pilots using airplanes?
Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
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.
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.
Yeah, but if an airplane mechanic botches a repair job on a plane, he loses his license or gets a huge fine, and can be sued for a lot of money if there are injuries or damages. An iPhone mechanic has no license, can't be fined, and if you wanted to take it to court, you wouldn't get much more than the value of the phone (much more and this shady company would just go bankrupt and not pay)
I have developed a truly marvelous proof of this comment, which this signature is too narrow to contain.
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?
The new iPad as 43kWh battery. Some laptops have much larger batteries than this. Anyone can screw up a laptop repair and put the crew in danger. You don't ban all laptops because someone screwed up their job. I have to question your understanding of real world situations.
Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
A laptop technician can screw up a laptop repair. In fact some laptop batteries have exploded (see Sony battery issues) without any repair at all. You don't ban laptops from planes do they?
Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
43kWh? I think you've got a few extra orders of magnitude in there. That is enough energy to run a car for a hundred miles.
The determined Real Programmer can write Fortran programs in any language.
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
What are you talking about? I'm agreeing with you. Your original post was about the plane itself, which is a different beast since there's liabilities for mechanics. I don't know why you brought them into it.
As stupid as the GGP's comment was, I don't think it was about the device itself. The article he linked was talking about using them to replace paper charts.
I have developed a truly marvelous proof of this comment, which this signature is too narrow to contain.
"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.
Should they ban pilots using airplanes?
It is a statistical fact that 99.9% of all airplane accidents, fatal or non-fatal, involve a pilot. So, yes. We'd save lots of lives is we banned pilots from airplaines.
He means the iPad5 prototype with RTG. Non-rechargeable, but runs for 10 years.
The principal advantage is elimination of the charging socket, which spoils the smooth lines of earlier models.