Comments on: Apple Tries To Hush Owners of Exploding iPod

By: make ipod safe

make ipod safe — Tue, 18 Aug 2009 08:04:22 +0000

Time to stop the rumors and tell the world: ipod are safe top use or not, while talking in the iphone you can lose your head or not

By: Condensed Knowledge – August 9, 2009 – Lists - Raoul Pop

Condensed Knowledge – August 9, 2009 – Lists - Raoul Pop — Sun, 09 Aug 2009 09:30:21 +0000

[...] Apple Tries To Hush Owners of Exploding iPod [...]

By: Catherine

Catherine — Wed, 05 Aug 2009 17:52:06 +0000

Steven’s points largely cover it, but I’d add that, in the UK, legal rights to a refund on the sale of goods (as opposed to damages/ex-gratia payments etc) are with the retailer, which was a third party retailer in this case, and the rights wouldn’t cover this sort of situation. These people are most likely complaining to/about Apple because the retailer refused a refund as they had damaged the iPod before the battery blew.

It’s fairly normal to require an agreement when paying out on a no-liability basis and not just to sweep problems under the rug – it means that it’s harder to find out what a manufacturer might pay you to go away if you complain.

By: Steven Fisher

Steven Fisher — Tue, 04 Aug 2009 05:02:42 +0000

I don’t know about the spin that’s been put on this. Let’s say you drop an Acer laptop computer and it breaks. Is the manufacturer going to replace it under warranty? How about a Zune?

The difference here is that the battery was damaged in the fall. Apple offered a refund BECAUSE THEY WANTED TO INSPECT THE UNIT. And because they didn’t want people thinking dropping an iPod might lead to a warranty, they ASKED that the owner not talk about the experience.

Frankly, it seems pretty @#$%ing reasonable to me. And, as noted, the family decided not to take Apple up on the offer.

By: Ed Oswald

Ed Oswald — Tue, 04 Aug 2009 00:40:27 +0000

Josh – actually these agreements appear to be pretty common from what my research is showing me – a lot of companies seem to want to sweep problems under the rug. AJ – from my understanding, no. they are sealed into the device.

By: AJ

AJ — Mon, 03 Aug 2009 20:30:52 +0000

@Josh,

Can Apple store employees remove the “non-removable” batteries? I suppose Apple could have a program where customers take their iPod Touch to the Apple Store and get the battery swapped there.

By: Josh

Josh — Mon, 03 Aug 2009 18:56:30 +0000

“…with 175 million iPods sold, how do you go about recalling the devices if it was necessary? That could be a daunting task.”

You would recall them much in the same way that Dell and Apple have recalled devices with bad lithium-ion batteries in the past: announce the affected model numbers and create a recall program. Exploding batteries in electronic devices is really nothing new, and any device with a lithium ion battery could potentially explode if damaged. I think the real WTF here is that Apple requested a confidentiality agreement in order to provide the customer with a refund.