Chinese State Media Report Bloated Battery in Apple's iPhone 8 (reuters.com)

A fresh case of Apple's new iPhone popping open due to a swollen battery has been reported in state media in China, the world's biggest smartphone market where the U.S. firm is seeking to revive faltering sales. From a report: The incident comes as Apple investigates similar cases reported in Taiwan and Japan of batteries in its latest iPhone 8 Plus becoming bloated, causing the device's casing to open. On its website on Thursday, China's state-backed ThePaper.cn cited an iPhone buyer surnamed Liu as saying his newly purchased iPhone 8 Plus arrived cracked open on Oct. 5. There was no sign of scorching or an explosion. Liu told ThePaper he bought the handset through online marketplace of JD.com. He said he did not charge the new device and returned it to the seller. The fresh reports comes on the heels of another story last week where Apple claimed that it was looking into a similar matter.

Comments

Re:Time to pass a law

[dgatwood]

Removable batteries doesn't solve the problem. It allows you to replace the battery more easily, IF it hasn't done a great deal of damage. And removable batteries don't prevent the battery from burning a hole in your pants.

Actually, part of the nature of a removable battery design is that the back has to be readily removable, which means unless it is designed badly, an expanding battery will not cause permanent damage. Rather, it would push the battery cover off, allowing the battery to expand safely. Upon seeing that, you'd just have to pull the battery out, replace it, and snap the cover back on. No big deal.

Also, one big cause of fires is compression of the battery, which can happen as a side effect of the battery expanding in the wrong way within an enclosed space. So because of that inherent safety valve (the battery cover), a removable battery design should be much less prone to catching fire as well.

This, of course, ignores the added risk of third-party removable batteries, but that's orthogonal.

Re:Fuck's Sake

[AmiMoJo]

JD.com is a major retailer in China. It's similar to buying from Amazon in the west. Some people prefer it because they have loyalty points, free shipping, credit etc. You can't read anything into it having been bought from there.

Also, this isn't the first case of this happening, and earlier instances (linked in the summary) include a guy from Japan who did buy direct from Apple.

If there is any issue here it's that we don't have enough data to really know if this is just the usual level of battery failure that all manufacturers experience or particularly bad.