Report: Apple tried to silence family over exploding iPod
The father of an 11-year-old girl in the U.K. said Apple tried to keep him from speaking about his daughter's iPod after it exploded last month.
Speaking to The Times in the U.K., Ken Stanborough said after he dropped the iPod Touch, it began hissing and started to get hot. As a precaution, he threw the iPod outside and "within 30 seconds there was a pop, a big puff of smoke and it went 10 (feet) in the air," he said.
Apple agreed to give Stanborough a refund, but only if he signed a confidentiality agreement, agreeing not to disclose any information about the incident. Stanborough said he found the letter "appalling" and refused to sign it.
To be fair, letters from companies in situations like this are most likely standard procedure. However, this isn't the first time Apple has been accused of trying to stop people from reporting on faulty iPods.
Reporter Amy Clancy of KIRO-TV in Seattle said it took her more than seven months to get documents from the Consumer Product Safety Commission on iPods that mysteriously burst into flames. She said she had filed a Freedom of Information Act request, but Apple lawyers filed "exemption after exemption" with the commission to stop her from getting the over 800 pages of documents.
Clancy said the documents show 15 "burn and fire-related incidents" that iPod owners blamed on the device.
Apple declined to comment for this story.
Jim Dalrymple has followed Apple and the Mac industry for the last 15 years, first as part of MacCentral and then in various positions at Macworld. Jim also writes about the professional audio market, examining the best ways to record music using a Macintosh. He is a member of the CNET Blog Network and is not an employee of CNET. He currently runs The Loop. You can follow him on Twitter @jdalrymple. 
this might be true for huge settlements, but I really doubt if its true for simple refunds.
This has been standard practice for Apple - and virtually all large companies - for well over twenty years. The contract is binding, but is discoverable in the event of a class tort, so there's no story here except C|Net trolling for fanboys on both sides of the aisle.
I can't STAND these sensationalist kinds of articles - they really cheapen this CBS property.
However, I would expect that you could make enough money to buy several ipods just by telling your story to a few different media outlets and charging them a small fee for the full story, especially the part about Apple wanting a signed document silencing the family. Hek, our local papers here would probably replace an ipod in exchange for an exclusive.
Of course, the actual cause of the fault is the unit being dropped. Even a cell phone could blow up under those conditions.
Seeing as they have sold 250++ million iPods/iPhones that is a rate of 0.00000006. I have a hard time believing any manufactured device with a Lithium battery is better then that.
Also, those letters are standard practice on any claims of this type. My brother once had a Mazda 626 Turbo that burst into flames while driving down the road like the second month he had it.
Seems that a small section of rubber tubing connected the metal fuel line running under the car to the fuel Injection system to allow for vibration and one of the clips popped off and turned the electric fuel pump into a flame thrower of sorts. Wasn't their fault, just a $2 clip snapped due to an undetected defect.
He said he was turning it in to his insurance, I said lets call Mazda and see if its a known problem and two days later after talking to some low level guy on the phone, they called him to the local dealership where there was a suit with this kind of paperwork to sign, a payoff check for his original car and his choice of any car on the lot for free. We looked it up and never found any other cases of this being reported on the internet at the time. They just do it as standard practice to avoid bad publicity.
both companies suck, both companies make some good products, some that have extremely high fail rates (xbox 360, which is still the best console) and others have been protected by aggressively controlled reporting (ipod, and if I am not mistake the craptastic failure that is the AIR)
Then your naive.
Oh?
Dell Denies It Knew of Overheating Battery Problem for Years
http://www.consumeraffairs.com/news04/2006/07/dell_laptop_batteries.html
" However, a Sony representative denied that the blame for Dell's battery cell problems lay completely with the Japanese manufacturer. "
http://www.zdnet.com.au/news/hardware/soa/Dell-Exploding-batteries-are-Sony-s-fault/0,130061702,339271073,00.htm
"Nokia has offered to replace 46 million mobile phone batteries because they are at risk from overheating -- but the world's biggest mobile phone manufacturer denies its actions constitute a product recall."
http://www.cnet.com.au/nokia-overheating-battery-issue-not-a-recall-339281198.htm
We can do this all day if you'd like... :)
Difference between denying and forcing someone to sign a confidentiality agreement to get a replacement that they are entitled to.
Which sounds colder?
So, you can prove that Dell, Sony, Nokia, et al don't do this... how?
With how rabid you guys get over PC issues I doubt something about them exploding would be kept quiet.
You do know that it's easier to just say you were wrong, you goofed, whatever... though I admit it is fun watching you squirm sometimes. ;)
Geez, grow up. You're not in the third grade anymore, Just move on with it already.
And how many ipods have been sold over the last decade? I am sure that it numbers in the millions. One person is trying to get fire and burn related incidents, Apple wants to keep the few that have happened quiet, and their were only fifteen different problems in how long?
Please stop trying to slander a good company with good products just because they are not Microsoft. Yes I own both PC's and Mac's. Both have their problems but how many people have given a huge problem over PC manufacturers problems. I hear very few in the news. Until the problem is widespread, say about 5% of ipods having problems, stop worrying about a problem.
Oh and your cell phone can just as easily burst like an ipod can because of the battery.
Leave the responsible companies alone!
Like this one
You don't threaten to sue your own customers for pointing out problems they've had with your product. That's just insane! This is as bad as when Creative threatened to sue someone who wrote custom drivers for Vista that would allow people to use the EAX features of slightly older sound cards. When something goes wrong with a product, you have your engineering team investigate the cause, you don't send a team of lawyers to silence it.
- Hewlett-Packard apologized publicly because one of its laptop was getting fire. Then they recalled all batteries on that models. its CEO personally contacted the "victim". Both parties were happy and no agreement was signed.
- One of Samsung phone blew up. They refunded the $$ and offered a new phone; WITHOUT signing any agreement.
-Apple: (to its customers): Sorry! go s*** yourself!! I don't need you. you need us.
what about my phone? nope, no no explosion
if I drop my iPod, it should not explode, if it did explode, Apple did something wrong when making it
Point of fact: Apple products do not come with any warning labels/manuals of the type you describe. They are very big on making sure they have as clean of a product packaging as possible.
She wouldn't have any freaking genitals or legs left attached to her! If that happened to my daughter, I would be so mad, that I would be thinking of doing the old 'kneecap' to the people who designed this absolute piece of crud.
And the terrorists these whole time were putting bombs in there shoes all they had to do was throw iPods at people.
boom boom boom crack
Good one monkeyfun14.
Had you read the article before commenting you would have noticed, "Stanborough said he found the letter "appalling" and refused to sign it."
As result he is not bound by the confidentiality agreement.
The way the post is written and without any clarification, it strongly implies you're insulting Mr. Stanborough for not keeping it confidential, a requirement of the agreement he refused to sign in exchange for the refund.
Wow, 15 out of 215 million sold. It's a ******* epidemic of exploding ipods. Where's the outrage? /Sarcasm.
None should be exploding.
Would you be reassured if you go and purchase a car and the dealer tells you only 15 out of 20 million have exploded randomly.
Can you please ask all 215 million to drop their iPhone and then report how many actually did explode? May be number will come in a million. I remember Toshiba replacing all batteries for some laptop models because they had a report of battery explosion for some person somewhere. Similarly Apple should recall all 215 million iPhone and repair it to make sure it should not happen rather than trying to hide the fact.
According to some random Googling, there were 266,000 car fires in the US in 2004 out of an installed base of about 251,000,000. That's a rate 150,000% higher than the iThing fire rate. I still bought a car though. (And it hasn't exploded yet.)
I am not saying failure does not happen, What I am concern about apple instead of recalling and fixing it trying to hide it.
Don't tell Dell and Sony (or Nokia) that... ;)
Overheating=/=Exploding
If it overheats possibly catches on fire I can get away from it with a good chance of not getting hurt.
If the thing explodes projecting flying pieces of molten metal and plastic then thats another story.
(he claims to own one).
I own several iPods, a Touch and an iPhone. They are powered by Sony batteries and yes, Sony has had problems with their lithium batteries going into meltdown conditions.
Your point?
[Displays on screen]
THIS DEVICE WILL EXPLODE IN 5..4..3..2..1.. ..* * * * * *
* * ** ** * *
* * ** * *
*** ** *
** **
\ /
__
|__|
speak for yourself.. do not put words in my mouth. its ok if u did not understand what i said. so here is an explicit At the end of the day Apple only cares about profit like many other companies.
Hey, I guess everyone gets their 15 seconds. Even if you have to lie for it.
So there's something behind the story enough to make Apple take this course of action. They don't do it out of the goodness of their hearts.
"You forgot the word "alleged", Dan. ;) "
Good point. We only have the family's position on this and no official word from Apple. It's something you failed to mention in every single one of your comments as well. Thanks for pointing this out. It is an alleged claim only.
Personally, I've never had to sign a confidentiality agreement as condition of refund. So no idea if this is indeed a standard practice.
this item will self destruct lol
Plus the sensationalist headline is pretty weak - I realize you are trying to drive pageviews but c'mon - its not like Apple kills people to keep them from talking about their products...
I have some first hand experience to relate. I had a power drill I was using on a project. I came into the house for a drink of water and set the drill on the kitchen table. I heard a sound and at about the same time smelled plastic burning I turned around to see the drill smoking around the handle/battery. I grabbed it by the chuck and flung outside, the battery came off as it hit the ground, the drill stopped burning. No explosion, but the potential for a house fire was very real. The drill was several years old and some generic brand that was given to me as a gift so I didn't bother reporting it.
- by Kwasiowusu August 3, 2009 3:59 PM PDT
- "To be fair, letters from companies in situations like this are most likely standard procedure"
- Like this Reply to this comment
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- by bling57 August 3, 2009 4:08 PM PDT
- wait, im sorry did I miss the part where this article said that apple was "intimidating and frightening" and "doing grievous bodily harm" to the girl? Apple said they had to sign a confidentiality agreement if they wanted their product replaced with a new one - and then said if the family broke their agreement there would be legal consequences.
- Like this
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- by Kwasiowusu August 3, 2009 4:14 PM PDT
- @ bling57 "wait, im sorry did I miss the part where this article said that apple was "intimidating and frightening"
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- by Kwasiowusu August 3, 2009 4:24 PM PDT
- @ bling57 "They had the option of not getting a new iPod "
- Like this
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- by monkeyfun14 August 3, 2009 4:41 PM PDT
- @bling
- Like this
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- by Dalkorian August 3, 2009 5:24 PM PDT
- Oh wow. The filthiest M$ prostitute shows up and defies all reality as well as common sense. I'd correct you, but I wouldn't know where to start.
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- by Kwasiowusu August 3, 2009 8:28 PM PDT
- @ by Dalkorian :"Oh wow. The filthiest M$ prostitute shows up and defies all reality as well as common sense."
- Like this
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- by Vegaman_Dan August 3, 2009 10:35 PM PDT
- Regardless of the reason, the way Apple handled this does come off as being a bit rather strong-armed and if not threatening, at least imposing through the threat of legal restrictions. Not exactly a 'friendly' experience.
- Like this
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- by sanjayb August 4, 2009 1:03 PM PDT
- @\Kwasiowusu
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Showing 1 of 2 pages (137 Comments)Oh rubbish!
Intimidating and frightening 11 year old girls, after you've sold them a product, that nearly ended up doing grevious bodily harm to that 11 year old girl, might be considered "standard practice" amongst the mafia. It sure as heck is not standard practice in any civilized society that I know.
Steve Job's nasty, mafia boys strike again, with the only weapon they know: Intimidation and threats.
They had the option of not getting a new iPod (which is probably fair considering they did abuse the product) - then they could speak to whomever they wanted. What Apple was doing was pretty standard practice - what article/fantasy are you reading?
From the article:
"Apple agreed to give Stanborough a refund, but only if he signed a confidentiality agreement, agreeing not to disclose any information about the incident. Stanborough said he found the letter "appalling" and refused to sign it."
If you are an 11 year old girl, that had your iPod just explode on you, and some guy from Aple comes round, and tells you, you are oly gonna get a replacement, if you signed some papers swearing never to tell anyone about it, wouldn't you be frightened?
This is intimidation and terrorism, pure and simple.
They should sue Apple.
If they signed away their rights first.
bling57 : "(which is probably fair considering they did abuse the product)"
Using an iPod, while jumping about in your backyard does not amount to abuse.
An iPod is not freshly laid egg...hey what am i saying?..Maybe it is...Apple just laid an egg here.
@ bling57 :"What Apple was doing was pretty standard practice -"
Of course it isn't.
If I buy a TV set from Best Buy, and the TV set exlodes and nearly sets my house on fire, I go to Best Buy and get my money back QUICK, WITHOUT SIGNING ANY NON DISCOLOURE AGREEMENT whereby I swaer never to tell anyone about it. What is apple anyways? The Soviet Politburo or the KGB?.
I never heard of such nonsense whereby a product nearly kills somebody, then the company that makles the product, is actually demanding that you sign a document not to tell anyone about it, before they repalce it for you.
Apple should be thainking their stars these guys hadn't already sued them for attempting to set their house on fire, and burn limb and body
" what article/fantasy are you reading? "
Obviously with clear, eyes and a highly critocal mind, as compared to the "see no evil about apple. Hear no evil about apple, tisnted glasses you have on.
What kind of garbage is that? Threatening not to replace a product if they tell. Sounds like mafia style business to me.
Hmm. maybe you should just come down off that acid trip first. Reality is calling.
So the biggset, ugliest, smelliest Apple HO, shows up, opens his smelly, ugly mouth, and spews out Applebot bile as if on cue.
So what's new?
@ by Dalkorian:" I'd correct you, but I wouldn't know where to start."
You couldn't "correct me" if you kept trying for a million years sucker, on account of everything I said being right on the button
@ by Dalkorian: "Hmm. maybe you should just come down off that acid trip first. Reality is calling"
You should know that shouldn't you, given that there are more crackheads amongst Apple fanatics than amongst any other single group on the planet.
Well look has come back to spew his hate filled nonsense.