iPods, They Are Exploding
So tell me how’s your iPod holding up? Has it ever gotten hot? or even exploded? If it did, you’re not alone. It appears that Ken Stanborough from liver pool accidentally dropped his 11-year-old daughters iPod Touch, apparently it soon made a “hissing noise” and began to get hot. As if on cue vapor started to come out of the player, fearing for his safety, Mr. Stanborough threw the device out the back door where within 30 seconds the iPod exploded and launched itself 10 feet in the air.
This has not been the first of reported cases of iPods exploding or causing burns, there was another case where it was rumored to have caught a man’s pants on fire. There have been 15 reported clams out there showing that the iPod case either exploded or just caught fire both causing injury to said party.
In the first story, the father contacted Apple for a refund. Apple did say yes, but at a price. It appears that Apple was willing to do a refund of an out-of-warranty device only if the family stayed silent and not report this with anyone. Well the family didn’t take to kind to this, and went to the The Times a new paper in the UK. Basically the letter they received by Apple said that they were to “agree that you will keep the terms and existence of this settlement agreement completely confidential”, and that any breach of confidentiality “may result in Apple seeking injunctive relief, damages and legal costs against the defaulting persons or parties”.
Sure being out of warranty a company does not need to issue any type of refund but if it is a device that is showing that it is indeed causing injury then it is their responsibility to look into it farther to make sure this isn’t something that could be wide spread. It took the Korean Agency for Technology and Standards to force Apple to recall it’s first gen nano’s due to reports of them over heating and exploding.
The problem at the heart of all these reports, apparently they were all caused by defects in the batteries. This was found out when a reporter obtained a 800 page documentation on the iPod explosion/burning cases from the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC). Like any large company that feels they have a reputation to try to hold up, Apple tried to prevent the release of such documents for as long as possible by having “lawyers file exemption after exemption”. She was was unable to get hold of the documents for months and when she did receive the documents they seemed to point to the Lithium Batteries as being the culprit.
This is not the first reported case of companies having problems with Li-ion batteries but at least other companies did something by having a recall. Sony recalled 100,000 battery units after just 40 reports of over heating. Sure any recall may make a company look bad, but at least they are preventing any further repercussions later on. I say if Apple doesn’t look more seriously into cases such as this, they could have a death on their hands, then what would happen to their reputation?
Original iPod news reported here at technology.timesonline.co.uk
Info on the Sony Battery recall can be seen here at msnbc.msn.com
