Apple says exploding iPhones due to "external pressure"

Apple's investigation into spontaneously exploding and cracking iPhones has yet to yield any evidence of product defects. That is the story the company told to France's minister of consumer affairs, anyway.

By Chris Foresman | Last updated August 30, 2009 10:48 AM CT

Following a rash of reports of iPhone screens spontaneously "exploding," in Europe, Apple today met with France's consumer affairs minister Herve Novelli. So far, according to Apple's investigations, none of the incidents involving an iPhone 3GS are due to rechargeable batteries or faulty glass. Of the problem devices that Apple has examined, the screens were broken by an "external force."

A number of highly publicized incidents in Europe prompted a recent inquiry from the European Commission. Apple answered that inquiry by noting that the incidents were "isolated" and that "there is not a general problem." The questions from the EC happened to follow a recent exposé that Apple attempted to suppress information about more than a dozen faulty iPod claims filed with the US's Consumer Product Safety Commission from being released to a TV station in Seattle. It should be noted, though, that the CPSC concluded "the number of incidents is extremely small in relation to the number of products produced, making the risk of injury very low."

Novelli met with Apple France's Michel Coulomb to discuss a number of reports of shattering iPhones in and around France recently, including a teen in Aix-en-Provence, a woman in Acheres-la-Foret, a security guard in Villevieille, and most recently a teen in Belgium. Novelli agreed that Apple's evidence thus far did not point to a problem with the iPhone 3GS, and said it was "too early to blame anyone" for the incidents. "The first results show, according to Apple management, that the iPhones weren't damaged by a battery defect leading to an explosion, but that there had been a prior shock that cracked the screens," the minister told Agence France-Presse.

"To date, there are no confirmed battery overheating incidents for iPhone 3GS and the number of reports we are investigating is in the single digits," according to Apple in a statement released to the press. "The iPhones with broken glass that we have analysed to date show that in all cases the glass cracked due to an external force that was applied to the iPhone."

The problem is certainly curious, especially since none of the reports have come from the US, where a majority of the 26 million iPhones out in circulation have been sold. With the CPSC, EC and France breathing down its neck, though, you can be sure Apple won't have much opportunity to hide a major defect if there was one.

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