'External force' fractured French iPhones, says Apple
Batteries not to blame
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Apple has claimed that all of the iPhones it has examined which allegedly underwent sudden screen shatter did so because of pressure applied to the outside of the handset.
"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 company said in a statement quoted by the BBC.
Almost a dozen cases of disintegrating iPhone displays have been reported this month, all in France. Today, a Belgian boy claimed his Apple handset went foom, too.
Unlike many handsets, the iPhone's screen is protected by a layer of glass rather than plastic, the better to prevent the scratches seen on iPods in the past.
In many instances, the handset's owner said the phone appeared to vibrate before the screen suddenly cracked. Some also claimed the glass splintered, in two cases allegedly leading to eye injury.
The explosive quality of these examples led many observers to suspect overheating lithium batteries, though the stories of shattering screens don't mention smoke or fire almost always seen when such power packs detonate.
Indeed, Apple said "there are no confirmed battery overheating incidents for iPhone 3GS", though it didn't mention previous models.
It insisted that "the number of reports we are investigating is in the single digits". ®
COMMENTS
Or maybe...
It's a new iPhone app. One of those useless ones. It simulates a broken screen. Unfortunately the makers added a message saying: "No press detected, press harder"
@Andus McCoatover
9 is nearly a dozen
9 is single digits
@Darius
You need to seek legal advice.
Sale of Goods act gives you a warranty against faults according to what a "reasonable person" would expect, regardless of any artificial (and usually mandated) warranty period provided by the manufacturer / reseller.
You would need to be able to demonstrate that a reasonable person would expect an expensive piece of consumer hardware to last more than 12 months and O2/Apple would equally have to demonstrate that offering only a 18 month contract minimum and 24 month contract as standard in no way implies that anyone should expect the phone to be fault free within that time.
Conspiracy
It wouldn't be possible for (insert disputed number) of victims out of (insert disputed number) of iphone owners numbers worldwide to have no insurance after breaking their phone and think a free one from Apple due to a 'fault' could be a nice idea ? Just sayin'.

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