FOIA Documents Detail iPods Overheating, Catching Fire 314
suraj.sun passes along a report from a Seattle TV station that has been investigating reports of Apple iPods overheating and bursting into flames. "An exclusive KIRO 7 Investigation reveals an alarming number of Apple brand iPod MP3 players have suddenly burst into flames and smoke, injuring people and damaging property. It's an investigation that Apple has apparently been trying to keep out of the public eye. It took more than 7 months for KIRO 7 Consumer Investigator Amy Clancy to get her hands on documents concerning Apple's iPods from the Consumer Product Safety Commission because Apple's lawyers filed exemption after exemption. In the end, the CPSC released more than 800 pages which reveal, for the very first time, a comprehensive look that shows, on a number of occasions, iPods have suddenly burst into flames, started to smoke, and even burned their owners. ... Apple refused to comment, and refused to answer all of the other questions [the reporter] has been asking of the company since November."
Don't expect to see this in mainstream news (Score:1, Insightful)
Apple will block it, their zealots will ignore it, the masses won't here about it.
public perception (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Don't expect to see this in mainstream news (Score:3, Insightful)
Macbook tag? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:ALARMING! (Score:5, Insightful)
So 1 in roughly every 11 million iPods has this sort of problem.
Out of curiosity, are there other products that burst into flames spontaneously at rates lower than 1 in every 11 million? I'm just thinking that if I bought 11 million of anything - including fire extinguishers - I wouldn't be terribly surprised if one went *FOOM!* one day.
The downside of high capacity batteries. (Score:5, Insightful)
High enough energy density and you go from energy store to high explosive.
Re:seattle? (Score:2, Insightful)
The iPod was a great idea, and they deserve the kudos for it. However, I can tell you as a father I would not give one of these to my kids, or own one myself even if the probability of this happening is 1/1000000.
Re:Meanshile, in Redmond... (Score:2, Insightful)
While this is bad... (Score:5, Insightful)
Oh no, 800 pages!!! (Score:5, Insightful)
"more than 800 pages of information, including 15 burn and fire-related incidents blamed by iPod owners"
Lets see, according to wikipedia [wikipedia.org], over 173 million ipods have been sold as of last September. Out of these, there are only 15 documented fire related incidents? Not to downplay the impact this had on the individuals but I can hardly see where this constitutes a risk to the public. At that rate, there are probably more ipod related choking incidents. The article keeps referring to the "800 pages" rather than the actual number of incidents which looks like they're trying to create the appearance that this is a big problem. If anyone feels that this is a serious danger then they need to be wearing a motorcycle hemet when walking around the house and and a life preserver at breakfast in case they might drown in their cereal bowl. Living involves some risks but I think this one I'll safely ignore.
Re:Don't expect to see this in mainstream news (Score:5, Insightful)
Read the article. The long report they talk about says that 15 were reported. That's 15 out of 175,000,000 (175 million).
Cars, computers, flippin' aircraft... I'd imagine a lot of products have catastrophic failures (such as sparks or fires) 1 in 11.6 million times. How often does it make the news (particularly nationally) when some guy's TV shorts out and ignites, or a car battery explodes.
And to clarifiy my position, I didn't jump down Sony's or Dell's or Apple's throat when their laptop batteries were causing major problems either. Though it's obviously good to know, as so many were affected, the most that can be said is that it was the battery manufacturers.
Out of every iPod burning (Score:5, Insightful)
Apple has quashed reporting of 100% of them.
Re:Don't expect to see this in mainstream news (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Don't expect to see this in mainstream news (Score:3, Insightful)
The fact that your iPod may catch fire and burn down your house is not something to keep quiet about, no matter to what extent the problem goes.
Even when the odds are 1 in 11 million + units? You have a greater chance of winning a lottery than you do of getting burned by your iPod. For that matter, at least one of those cases was due to the user sitting down with the thing in their pants pocket. I can't tell you how many Nintendo Gameboys I had to repair with broken screens because the kids sat on them or stuffed them in their front pants pocket. You try sitting down with something about the size of your hand in your pocket; it's going to flex, and flexing is likely to bend the battery or some other component.
I mean, really! Out of over 175 Million units sold, only 15 had an overheating problem? That's more reliable than even the Model T!
Comment removed (Score:3, Insightful)
Repeat after me (Score:4, Insightful)
R E M O V A B L E
B A T T E R I E S
I think it is plain and obvious to see that the reason Apple doesn't want removable batteries is to prevent a 3rd part market in battery sales but also to make products without removable batteries more "disposable." People can argue to the contrary, but the conclusion needs to fit with typical consumer behavior. Such behavior includes a high failure and low willingness to follow through with warranty claims and procedures among others such as the tendency to throw away instead of recycling. (It is useless to point out that some people WILL do those things. The majority of people will not.)
Re:Don't expect to see this in mainstream news (Score:1, Insightful)
Batteries are small containers which contain ever larger amounts of energy. They are bombs. Sometimes, they catch fire. This happens with all electronic devices. The question is whether iPods are worse than other devices; so far, the data isn't in, but since it's Apple, a high-profile company which sells a ton of devices, people will be quick to blame them for everything.
So we can either have a discussion about the data, or we can yell at each other. Your post started out as if you wanted to go with the first idea. Too bad you ended up with calling Apple's customers "more pathetic than followers of scientology" and implying that it would be good if they died in a fire.
Loving a business that doesn't employ you (or, in fact, any kind of business) is just as sick as hating the customers of a specific business.
Re:Nothing New (Score:5, Insightful)
Simple question: How does this relate to the discussion at hand about iPods?
I suppose "Simple" is one way to describe your question.
The discussion at hand about iPods is not really about them catching fire. It's really about the fact that Apple has been trying to hide the fact from the public. Apple also tried to hide B&W G3 data corruption from the public by removing the TIL when they folded it into the KB. In general, Apple attempts to hide its failures from the public, to the detriment of the customer. Their cachet depends on people believing that they are somehow different from other manufacturers, but in reality they are depressingly similar.
It should not take a FOIA request to find out what the catch-fire-and-burn rate is on a piece of electronics you're considering purchasing. And it should not require that you surf the antique web to find out why your computer is corrupting files. Increasing used value increases new value, so preventing people from finding out about problems with your hardware potentially increases profits. It's certainly one thing working for Apple...
Comments like yours make me feel like I'm in school. Nobody should have had to write a fucking essay to explain this to you.
Re:News Flash ... Lithium Ion Batteries Can 'Asplo (Score:4, Insightful)
Buying accessories to prevent bodily harm from a freaking cellphone or mp3 player seems pretty excessive to me. I'd sooner reconsider my purchase of such a device than go to these lengths...
Re:Don't expect to see this in mainstream news (Score:4, Insightful)
I don't know how large a company KIRO 7 is, but using the phrase "alarming number of" instead of "15", to sensationalize a story, is certainly unethical.
This doesn't give Apple a pass but we have no way of knowing what they've done internally to address the problem. Could be nothing. Regardless, I don't blame them for not wanting the story widely reported in the media.
Re:Don't expect to see this in mainstream news (Score:3, Insightful)
Ethical companies get bought out by unethical companies.
Re:Another non-story (Score:2, Insightful)
No, drinkypoo, it's not that Apple hid the story, but rather that Apple chose not to talk about it because it wasn't a story. I can't name one company in the world that wants to acknowledge a problem; not Apple, not Ford and not anyone else. They usually don't discuss such matters unless and until they become a publicly visible problem, and 15 units out of 175 MILLION units do not make a publicly visible problem unless somebody goes out of their way to make it one, which seems to be a big purview of anti-Apple zealots.
Re:seattle? (Score:3, Insightful)
It may be a small percentage, but would you really want your child to be the lucky winner?
I hope you never leave your driveway. :(
Re:Don't expect to see this in mainstream news (Score:5, Insightful)
Ties in nicely with the newest story (Score:3, Insightful)
Currently the newest story is "Visualizing False Positives In Broad Screening", regarding how to convey the rarity of events to people not familiar with statistics. While companies shouldn't be fighting to hard to keep these sorts of thing secret, I think we're probably forcing them to as a society since the public is largely unable to put these kinds of rare events in perspective. The 24-hour news channels will jump all over this sort of thing and blow it out of proportion to fill airtime, and the public ends up with the mindset that they're playing Russian roulette every time they use an ipod.
Ultimately, companies are probably going to keep suppressing this sort of info until everyone learns to look at this sort of information like adults.
Comment removed (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Don't expect to see this in mainstream news (Score:3, Insightful)
You said fisher price came up with a way of solving it fairly rapidly. Would FP's response have been different if the product carried the inherent risk and they couldn't fix it, or if the product were their bread and butter?
Maybe apple found that there was no way to ensure that no ipod ever would do this. Telling everyone who buys an ipod that it could explode at random seems like the type of thing that might make people buy a Zune instead. Then again, they could just stuff it in the literature somewhere and trust it would be ignored, maybe right under whatever section talks about not using their products to start a nuclear war.
Not that it would be any more ethical than not telling people at all.
Re:ALARMING! (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Out of every iPod burning (Score:3, Insightful)
It would be nice if they didn't obstruct access to the information if somebody wants it.
Apple has done nothing but make the situation worse. Instead of letting them just have the information and giggling as they tried to make 15 fires seem like a huge risk to our children!!! Apple decided to give them a half-page story about how they did everything in their power to stop a news agency from getting government consumer safety reports (as if they had any chance of that working in the first place) before they ever have to bother with presenting pesky facts and figures.
Re:ALARMING! (Score:3, Insightful)
So 1 in roughly every 11 million iPods has this sort of problem.
No -- 1 in roughly every 11 million iPods has reported this sort of problem.
Then prepare to go without anything (Score:3, Insightful)
Buying accessories to prevent bodily harm from a freaking cellphone or mp3 player seems pretty excessive to me. I'd sooner reconsider my purchase of such a device than go to these lengths...
So what you are saying then is that you'd rather go without a cell phone at all - since pretty much any modern cell phone uses the same battery tech.
Really? You'd really be without any cell phone ever, even for emergencies? That seems even less rational.
not really unexpected (Score:3, Insightful)
Keeping in mind that Apple doesn't make the batteries, they have to have some degree of trust in their suppliers. I doubt anyone can picture Apple stupid enough to bait PR nightmares and lawsuits when their image is very important to their business model. Apple's typical reaction is the industry best-case product-problem-coverup-job - do everything reasonable to stick a lollypop in the mouth of anyone that screams, and quietly correct the problem so it doesn't happen again. They're unlikely to admit fault, that would just fan the flames. (pun?)
Batteries lately though do seem to be a serious problem all around for everyone. DSLAM phone boxes [lightreading.com] blowing [broadbandreports.com] up [metafilter.com] down the street, laptops and ipods [wsbtv.com] catching [dailymail.co.uk] fire [google.com], liio batteries puffing [arstechnica.com] up like balloons [cellphoneforums.net]. Inadequate testing if you ask me. New technology trying to get rushed into a highly competitive new market, skip the tests it's good enough, just ship it. Then stuff blows up catches fire, or generally misbehaves. But right now rechargeable batteries are making a shambles out of Moore's Law [wikipedia.org].
This isn't really news any more than the 5 o-clock rush hour. Blame Apple, blame Sony, whatever, it's going to happen. It's not anywhere outside the bell curve yet.
Public Documents being covered up. (Score:1, Insightful)
Do you think you're refuting the cover-up claims by linking to a document published by Apple?
If you do think that, you're wrong. The cover-up being reported on here is attempts by Apple lawyers to prevent public documents being obtained under freedom of information laws.
It shouldn't take seven months for someone to obtain access to documents funded by the public purse.