Apple tries to gag Brit over exploding iPod

I found this very interesting story at http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/blog/2009/aug/03/uk-ipod-explodes.

Times Online has an exploding iPod story with two major elements: the size of the explosion (fortunately no one was hurt), and Apple's response. The story says:

Ken Stanborough, 47, from Liverpool, dropped his 11-year-old daughter Ellie's iPod Touch last month. "It made a hissing noise," he said. "I could feel it getting hotter in my hand, and I thought I could see vapour". Mr Stanborough said he threw the device out of his back door, where "within 30 seconds there was a pop, a big puff of smoke and it went 10ft in the air".

The story then moves on to the information dug up by KIRO 7 Eyewitness News, which was the subject of a blog post here on 23 July: iPods that sometimes burst into flames

KIRO said Apple's lawyers tried to prevent the information getting out, which leads the Times to say: "Last week it emerged that Apple had tried to keep a number of cases where its iPod digital music players had started to smoke, burst into flames and even burned their owners, out of the public eye." The Times adds that:


Last year the Japanese Government warned that iPod Nanos presented a potential fire risk, saying there had been 14 cases in the country where the players had caught alight, with two people suffering minor burns.