EU mulls exploding Iphones recall
THE EU has indicated that it is prepared to take 3G Iphones away from Apple fanboys if they are found to be too dangerous.
The European press has not been so hands off about Apple's woes as the American IT press and has actually been reporting stories of how the things have a nasty habit of cracking or exploding.
Attitudes to Apple are frosty at the EU Commission where the outfit is not that much loved because of its cavalier attitudes to European consumer law.
Apple insisted that its Ipods should be made an exception to electronics rules because it did not see why they should be required to work after two years.
The attitude of the US trade press seems to be that any recall would be an example of the European socialist nanny state in action. After all, what are a few French people catching fire, just look at how well Apple is doing, it is going to put out a tablet soon.
But serving up exploding Iphones seems to be seen as Apple pushing things in the EU. There have been a couple of dozen complaints, which Jobs' Mob claims is tiny in comparison with the numbers of Iphones it sold. After all what are a few people catching fire and a couple of dozen gadgets exploding when you sell a million of the things?
However the European Union's consumer czar warned that Iphones would be taken off the market if national authorities find manufacturing faults lie behind the rash of mysterious explosions. Apparently France is very keen to do this.
Meglena Kuneva pointed out that she did not need Steve Jobs' permission to stop the Iphones from entering the EU. "If goods are dangerous, then we will order a recall," she said. Apparently this comment surprised the US trade press, which always writes nice things about Apple.
Kuneva has received complaints from Britain, France and Germany, with one involving a girl who caught fire when her phone blew up in front of her.
Problems have also been reported by media outlets in Belgium and the United States. Apple has responded to the situation by asking people who suffer from faulty Iphones to sign gagging orders.
Interestingly, Kuneva said that Apple mentioned in its submission that isolated cases of overheating lithium-ion batteries had been reported. Before that Apple's official line was that users must have been dropping the gadgets or otherwise mistreating them.
The EU is subjecting Iphones to some testing of its own. It wants to see if there are problems with the batteries or if the problems most likely have been caused by misuse of the devices.
It only takes one member state to decide that the Iphone is dangerous for the EU to act in the interests of the consumer and order a recall.
It did this in the case of Italian Senseo coffee machines that burnt the hands of consumers.
If there is a recall then Apple's European fanboys will have to hand their perfect little devices back until Jobs Mob can make them so perfect that they don't explode or crack.
That should wipe the smug smiles off their faces.
It will mean that every time Apple fanboys try to convert Linux or Windows users to the wonders of Apple's proprietary gear, they can just smile and point out that Windows and Linux have never actually exploded, caused someone to catch fire or been subject to a total recall. µ
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last time I heard it wasn't operating systems that exploded but hardware. if you are referring to hw that runs windows/ linux then can one remind mr cynical farell about Dell, sony and few others which escape me at the moment (you should be doing your research ...) which have also exploded
Even if they're forced to support their hardware longer than two years, Apple will still win. They're like insurance companies: they'll just up the price for everyone to compensate for whatever new regulations are put on their product.
The same thing happens with other computer products sold in the EU too, where products that would be normally replaced before they die, are forced to have a continued replacement policy long after their useful life--at the expense of the consumer. Only at least the iPhone will probably be used more than 2 years.
@BB - if a product's replacement policy extended beyond the products useful life, consumers would never ask for a replacement. The only reason why the replacement polocy increases the cost of the item is because people actually ask for replacements - proving that the useful life of the product is longer than you realize.
@Dino - is this the first time you've been to this website? Or have you been so blinded by fanboi rage that you've lost your sense of humor? In either case, the article is correct: neither windows nor linux have exploded. But, if you were a little smarer, you could have made fun of MS's web browser...
On the other hand, Microsoft DOES make computer hardware. There are no credable reports of MS keyboards or mice exploding. That's just how MS makes their hardware.
BB, your comment is only true if Apple had guaranteed customers. They don't.
Apple will raise prices in response to the EU. Phones by other manufacturers will not have their prices raised because they don't explode as often. The iPhone will be at an even bigger price disadvantage. Apple will loose sales.
All of our new gadgets contain battery's that contain a
large storage of electricity.
If they are dropped on a hard service the battery should fall out not be soldered in. If the battery falls out the danger of fire stops. If soldered in a dead short will get hotter and hotter until a fire starts.Profit is more important than safety in Apple mind. All soldered in battery's should be banned from every country, its a accident waiting to happen.
In my mind Apple is a Rotten Apple.
Its not that hard to engineer a fallout
battery container.After all these are advanced technological devices.
One thing is a fact for sure: Apple is not making products with the same quality it used to. And MAC OS sucks. Point.
If Apple had made the battery removable any potential recall due to a battery fault would be massively cheaper to implement. Given that from time to time lithium-ion batteries do have problems, doesn't it seem short sighted of Apple to fix the batteries in? Every other manufacturer manages to get it right, so why not Apple?
@Scott - I'd heard that such a regulation is soon to come in to effect in the EU. Not before time too. Anyone got any firm details?
If any Americans out there think that the state-driven consumer protection system we have here in Europe is too socialist for their liking, I'd like to remind them that they are welcome to keep paying their lawyers when it comes to sueing a manufacturer over dodgy/dangerous goods.
The only reason a battery should be soldered in is if there's a danger of a spark in a combustible atmosphere (Over here it's called at least CSA Class 1 Div 2). Sure it's a pain in the ASCII Code to replace but considered the alternative...
Don't think the rest of iPhony construction meets criteria for operation in this environment so what up wit dat?
Not sure who paid the guy to write this crap.
While people can argue about quality of products the author clearly has an ax to grind with Apple.
Let the people decide if they want a product and not a nerd who has nothing else to do than whine about apple users.
Nice one leomo, welcome to the INQ.
mike: "There are no credable reports of MS keyboards or mice exploding. That's just how MS makes their hardware."
Think again, there have been house fires started by faulty Xbox 360 PSUs (said as an Xbox 360 owner, not a PS3 troll).
Yeah, INQ. Let people be ignorant about Apple faults and decide all by themselves which brand has more quality based only on its price.
@Dino: I also never heard about exploding M$ hardware, or any other hardware made by an Apple rival for that matter.
I love the smell of frustrated fanboyism in the morning.
Now thats what i like about the inq, the comments. The whole website has come down quite a bit with the changes, but the comments still give more insight.
Its not the inq that makes the inq its people like drash.
Another funny article. If people cant tell what funny and what’s not its their problem. Just imagine if everything we did was target at socially impaired. Hey we would be politicians and rule English speaking countries!
Just curios: How many gadgets need to explode before your company is listed as terrorist organisations with lings to the big Al Q? Al Apple anyone?
Apparently he's not had the pleasure of the laptop flameouts, or the XBox meltdowns, and such like.
Maybe he's too young, or too stupid to have remembered all that.
I suggest he try placing one of these "evil" iPhones up one of his orifices and let us know what happens. I'm sure an explosion could be triggered by him making calls this way.
I always thought the reason for fixed batteries is to possibly ensure better heat dissipation by improving thermal contact. It doesn't seem to be the case (and the case should be all aluminium as well). So it's just about a short projected life, or alternatively servicing needs, in other words, maximizing profit and making everything proprietary.
One interesting question though: in majority of reported cases, the display breaks apart, instead of the thin back plate (which is much closer to the battery). Could someone explain this?
Fascistic European Union, that is. Not what you were thinking I was thinking (yeah right!).
America should immediately cut off all Foreign Aid to the P.U. Block, and withdraw all military and intelligence support. Let's see what the pervert cowards do in the Commie Red's shadow when we're not there to defend and babysit their pathetic behinds.