Stop writing about exploding Apple gadgets

"And is it worse to have an iPod explode than to, say, be stalled at the side of the road in some Muslim neighborhood due to the failure of your British Leyland's electrical system?"

What are you saying here Noisewater? Muslims are worse than Apple? Or Worse than appliances that explode in your face? What exactly does religion have to do with the fact that if an apple gadget explodes in your face you will be gagged by apple before they will even consider replacing your gadget - and/or help towards medical fees..

Yet another slag-job from dear ol' Nick.. Not seeing a whole lot of neat toys from Britain though, not since the BBC Micro..

He's probably just a disgruntled holder of Psion shares :p

(And is it worse to have an iPod explode than to, say, be stalled at the side of the road in some Muslim neighborhood due to the failure of your British Leyland's electrical system?)

If we don't stop Apples Jacks Heads will start exploding like popcorn you know how they can't take the idea that Jobs is foisting crap on them at twice the going rate!!

or drop on the floor? Details, details.... any list of causes for 15 cases? Investigated reporter should put facts and find out any failure related "intended usage", not "exceptional usage".

The case with exploding iPhones and iPods is pretty bad for Apple. The Company That Can Not Do Any Evil(=Apple) can't use their normal tactics of intimidation because of the simple fact that European authorithies has acted on the issue and now Apple has to try to wiggle off the hook without using their normal methods of whotewash and intimidation ....... If Apple ties to lie their way out of it, then the European Commission will for sure nail 'em. Even mighty Micro$oft had to throw in the towel when faced by the European Union's Commission.

I cant remember this many malicious sudo-journalists writing articles on Dell laptops exploding?? Suppose its easier than actually getting off their butt and finding a story to write about. Pretty pathetic really, call your self a journalist.

@David: Your comparison is not acceptable. The Gadgets don't exploded right after they're unboxed. The few cases that were reported involve used gear that's been dropped.

People need to get over this. There's so many ways to get injured in your everyday live that are way more likely than getting fried by your music player.

It is not acceptable for any company to produce any product that explodes which is not meant to. Saying that it is a non-issue because of the millions of iPods which have been sold compared to the 15 reported cases of them blowing up is rediculous. Even just one of them exploding is too many to not be an issue. And just because there are 15 cases that have been reported, doesn't mean that there haven't been other cases which have been kept quiet...

I agree that this article isn't written very well. Comparing exploding iPods to aircraft faults is not a good comparison at all, but the simple fact is that Nick is right in saying that it is not right for Apple to tell customers that they need to sign an NDA before they will replace or refund a faulty product. Apple warranties are notorious for being difficult to deal with, especially in countries that have solid rules in plays regarding the way faulty goods are meant to be treated by the manufacturer.

A better comparison for the issue of exploding Apple devices would be something like LCD dead pixel warranties. Many computer monitors come with a zero dead pixel warranty. Out of the 1.7 million pixels on a 1680 x 1050 resolution monitor, that is an extremely low percentage for just one dead pixel. Even on a Samsung full HD TV for instance which has over 2 million pixels, they will replace the TV if there is 1 dead pixel in the centre area of the screen. For the outer area of the screen there needs to be 2 dead pixels before they will replace it, but even that is still a very low percentage rate.

If LCD manufacturers can recognize there is an issue with 1 or two dead pixels out of 2 million for a computer monitor or TV, then Apple should be able to recognize an issue with iPods that have exploded. A dead pixel is not going to cause any physical harm to any person or damage property like a small explosion could, and it shouldn't matter if it's because the batteries are made by Apple or another company...

Every US company is using sweatshop in mainland china. This is common to makes their shareholder's happy with increasing profits. As long as these companies using these sweatshop, there will be always faulty products because of lack TCQ and responsibilities. Even the appointed sweatshop will outsources again to third party with less advanced in technical terms.

The top comment accuses him of being an Apple press officer...<<

Apparently deleted from the site to avoid the obvious up front!

Bloody people. I can't bear that man anyway. He's so awful, he really is.

@InTheShelter

I am not a lawyer.

In the US there are lemon laws and safe product laws.

They've been used against Isuzu, Chrysler, many drug companies and a long list of very large companies. It does not matter what the shrink wrap licence says. When you buy a product in the US, the law says you have a reasonable expectation that it will perform in the manner advertised and not unduly endanger yourself or your other property.

Again, I am not a lawyer.

Al Quaeda has been handing out iPods in Iraq for years. Local citizens have been listening to them on crowded streets and BOOM!

Let's see. 15 self-destructing iPods/iPhones out of over 100 Million sold.

Do you realize that with those odds you are likely to die (several times, if it was possible) in a plane crash than have your iPod battery burn?

Everybody run for the hills. The sky is falling!... not!!!

The death of your first born, or future born child, as the case may be would be a "statistical non-issue" world-wide.

Their death would have no significant impact on me and since you seem to be so coldly mathematical, and so into meaningful events for the world at large, maybe not on you either.

I see "someone" doesn't have the logic and facts to actually comment on my posts about the ridiculous hyperbole surrounding this topic so he resorts to some alternate topic. Bravo.

Perhaps you would do well to just admit that you blindly hate Apple too? Masquerading as anything else only wastes everyone's time. If you want to have a serious discussion about what you perceive as the inadequacies of my post, fine, but if not then don't dumb down the message board with your off-topic comments.

InTheShelter,
Did not see you running around and complaining about some new Apple product presented and hyped by the media worldwide as the second comning of Jesus Christ. I guess the coverage did not bother you back then, even though it was wildly exaggerated.

The issue is not press coverage or NDA. My previous comment is about ERRONEOUS press coverage. Hyperbole designed as press coverage that is either motivated by money (a paid hack) or page hits (more revenue). This article and most of the ridiculous comments about it are so inaccurate and anti-Apple biased that we're not really talking about exploding iPods here. This is just a forum for a hack journalist to make money and blind Apple haters. Just be honest about it, all of you. Say I hate Apple and be done with it. But to say that this exploding iPod story is anything more than a statistical non-issue is disingenuous and outright false.

For the record, I am an Apple fan and I don't want exploding iPods. But so far most of the "reporting" is innuendo and allegations presented as fact. If the product safety commissions of several countries decide Apple has a real problem then fine, but so far all I've heard from them is they are hearing "isolated reports". Not confirmed. Not statistically significant. So let's just be honest and call this for what it is. The writer if this article is just trying to exploit the rumors for money, and the commentors all just hate Apple.

What's all this about signing a NDA being standard industry practise when returning faulty goods? I've never been asked to sign a NDA when returning any item of faulty electrical equipment in the UK.

People are really thick over this type of issue. Does anyone really think that some NDA by Apple over this is going to matter to the Consumer Products Safety Commission or the EU analog? Get a flipping grip. When such agencies get involved, Apple has no real choice but to sit back and do as told. If a defect is found, there will be a recall: end of story. Jeez, they recall products that have not hurt people when the fail because of an obvious defect, and if someone was hurt, they go into overdrive to identify the problem.

I would saw we are seeing a good amount of anti-apple in some media reaction just as we are seeing fanboi reaction. Truth is when consumer products have problems, they are investigated. If an identifiable problem is found--recall. If not, no recall, but to insist a coverup is pure ignorance.

15 People who were brave enough not to sign and NDA and complain else where.
You Apple fanboys really are a piece of work. Not only are you so lacking in self confidence about your own expensive purchases you feel the need to make other people buy them too.
This "reporter" is telling other people not to listen to other "reporters" not because they are wrong (ipods do explode) but because he thinks that Apple is a nice company and people should not say bad things about it. Just like we are not allowed to mention that Apple products are made in sweatshops in china who beat up and might have killed a staff person recently. Why are journalists not allowed to mention it? No hard facts... just he owns an iphone and thinks it is good. When reporters call for censorship of the press it is time they quit their jobs.

How about a little flash game where you throw iPods as hand grenades or something?

Why would Apple want anyone to know about exploding iPods and iPhones? Better to gag a customer who's seeking warrantee repair or replacement than to have them tell their friends not to buy POS products that explode. They may tell two friends who tell more and so on. What is amusing is a non-Apple employee getting all steamed up over the press pointing out faults in Apple's products. Why don't we all just drink the coolaid and accept being told how wonderful and perfect Apple products are?

NOT.

Unless the hack protesting the press reporting on faulty Apple products has some affect on Apple stock price (and his stock), his protests are falling on deaf ears. An exploding electronic gizmo is a health hazzard and there is no good reason to cover up (or gag) a customer who seeks repair or replacement of a warrantee product. If Apple denies repairing or replacing a faulty product due to a customer being unwilling to sign a gag order about it, bad publicity resulting from that will definitely be reported in the few non-Apple fawning media outlets. The one way around That gag order is for the affected customer to tell as many friends as possible about the exploding iJunk prior to contacting Apple for replacement, sign the gag, and then the bad publicity still happens to Apple. They deserve it. It's irresponsible to try to cover up faulty products. There's no acceptable excuse for it. Admit a product is faulty, fix the product, and take the financial hit that results from that rather than cover up to try and save money.

For those who came in late, Apple has been having a problem with exploding Iphones and Ipods lately.

- Incorrect. There have been a total of 15 REPORTS of this issue. They have not "been have a problem" with it, unless you mean a problem with hack writers (meaning you) overinflating a statistical non-issue.

"fruit-themed toy-maker wanting people to stop reading about their products blowing up."

- Can you blame them. Any anti-Apple piece is siezed upon by the loosely termed "press" and hyperbole ensues. Take your article for example.

Apple's antics of demanding that people . . . sign a gagging order"

- Whoa there son, you just might have exagerated there a bit. I have heard of one (1) report of someone being ASKED (not ordered as you allege) to sign an agreement. And before we go much further, it is NOT a gag order. Only a court can issue that. It is a legal agreement, cash for silence. You make it sound like mercenaries show up on customers' front doors and tell people to sign or die.

He insists . . that it is perfectly normal business practice to issue such legal threats.

- Two issues here. First, if a product is out of warranty Apple is NOT required to give them anything. If Apple decides to do compensate them when they are not obligated then they have a right to ASK them to sign an NDA. Second, it is NOT a legal threat. Could you be any more of a blatant liar?

"particularly when the company could be sued into penury for selling dangerous products."

- Let's examine that, shall we? If your assertion is true, that they are selling dangerous products, then they will eventually be sued. Have they been sued about this? I mean the way you're spinning it people must be dying left and right, and yet not a lawsuit to be found? Unbelievable, unless the problem is, as I've said, statistically insignificant.

"if the same statistic applied to airliner flights it would mean that an aircraft would crash every day. Would that be acceptable?"

- Your attempt to equate an iPod (allegedly) exploding with an airline crash is lame. Instead of an airliner maybe you should have used something even more bellicose in your comparison. Maybe a city burning? Or a planet exploding? And for the record his statistic was multiplied 100 TIMES what the real incidence rate would be if these reports are real. The actual rate would be 7 ten thousandths of 1 percent. Your analogy also fails because the percentage rate he mentions would NOT equate to one airline crash per day, even based on that percentage number times the daily number of flights. Another deception on your part.

"Even if Apple puts dodgy batteries in its machines and then seals them in so no one other than its service teams can get them out of the little beasties."

-Your whole anti-Apple article is unbelievably ridiculous. This last statement alleges they put "dodgy batteries" in their "little beasties". Journalism is truly dead. How much is MS paying you?

"Following that logic we would not write about faulty tech gear at all."

- No, that is not the conclusion to make. The point was even if true it is a statistical non-issue that is being blown WAY out of proportion. You yourself are stopping just short of blaming Apple for the coming Apocalypse. His point is this does not merit the hyperbolic coverage that has been going on lately, yet it keeps getting dredged up by psuedo journalists looking for page hits.

"the comments page on Hesseldahl's story is amusing. The top comment accuses him of being an Apple press officer"

- Based on your innacuracies one could accuse you of being a paid anti-Apple hack, don't you think?

"he should hand in his press card"

-Physician heal thyself. You have obviously sold out yourself. Your article is riddled with inacuracy and innuendo.

Those who are not prone to simple mesmerisms should always speak out against destructiveness because not only does "The Devil never speaks against His own house", but when trickery gets subtler, the time for speaking out might be long gone. A journey starts with a single step and so too is the stealing/fragmenting of others' Attention.

The material realm, materialism, has one main duty and that is to elicit joy, be it simple or full, through the act of generosity. It is not for grooming some idiotic-cum-lunatic idea of privilege through fashion, oka the religion of the living dead. When ot comes to Reality, there is the truly living, oka infinity/divinity, followed by the living, the living dead and the truly non-living, oka a mere principle with the two in-between states of the living and the living dead having the option of going either way. That scale is defined by their inherent state-of-timing/co-efficiency, their "vibrations", though Divinity has-no/is-not-subjectable-to vibrations because Divinity defines vibrations [eeven though we can feel Divinity through vibrations].

When the truly living "touches" a principle like, say, a stone, it gives it a state of timing which can be passed onto the next beholder. That is what prayer/worship is really about but for that to happen, the beholder first has to realised the state of his true infrastructure and the true meaning of Divinity, vibrations, and so forth, as well as his own state of reality/being/vibrations. When knowledge is merely words and thoughts, it not only lacks reality/empowerment, the beholder will actually "fill in the blanks". though his imaginations-cum-experience - his perceptions through his illusions-cum-delusions. The word "vibrations" oould mean something or it can be the full flood of Divinity - whatever that may mean [and the convolution starts/repeats because doubt/confusion is the means by which the uninitiated/unconscious might be awakened as to his true state/reality].

When materialism has the vibrations of deceit/mesmerism/greed/fear/anger/guilt/control/abandonment/ad infinitum, its message is of death. There is no joy in it other than some sense of association with the living dead, oka excitement. The day when the living dead realised their true position, all the money, deciet, greed, mesmerism within their coffers is not worth even the dust off the feet of those who not mesmerised. But in the meantime, let the good times roll and enjoy as the living dead goes deadlier, justified as "intelligence", "privilege", "wealth", "power", and not least, their position of saviourship, flair and genius. All bow to these fixed-in-time/vibration tree-climbers. And before anybody gets really upset about what's written, it's all a joke -honest - you know it is because nobody can mesmerise saviours and geniuses.

How long until iPods and iPhones arent allowed on planes because they have been identified as explosives?

I will be able sleep at night knowing my Zune isn't out to kill me.

Your Ipod and plane crash statistics need some modifications. It seems they don't account for fires, resulting in plane crashes, stemming from Ipod explosion. It'd be the small middle section of the Venn Diagram.

consumers have a right to know - this guy obviously thinks it is ok to lie to consumers.

he's probably motivated to think this way via a desire for fast cash...

Yea thats not really a fair comparison as the downside of the airline industry failing is people die whereas apple has exploding products.

Though NDA's shouldn't really be applied to customers who have had problems and apple lunatics shouldn't be crying that people complain. Its in their nature. Apple Fanbois are beginning to sound like extremist religious fanatics. No don't print a picture of a Apple blowing up they will boycott our countries products burn our flags etc etc.... I'm suprised people haven't died over this latest spate of apple stuff.....

... but how many were gagged under an NDA?

"There's nothing wrong with gagging people from talking! I mean, you only know about 15" would be more honest.

Hmmm, lets see:
An exploding lamp - burns building etc. Most certainly bad. Not (directly) an IT issue.
An explodng iThingy. Often found in trousers next to one's realThingy. Most certainly bad - and relates to an IT device.
Of the two cases, which will the IT press write about?