Dutch Apple store evacuates after likely iPad battery incident

Posted:
in iPad edited August 2018
Apple's Amsterdam store was briefly evacuated on Sunday afternoon following what appears to the overheating of an iPad battery.

Image Credit: AT5
Image Credit: AT5


After trouble began store staff immediately put the tablet in a bin with sand, which seemed to halt the situation, Dutch blog iCulture noted. By around 2:20 p.m. local time, the city's fire department was on the scene. Though there was no obvious smoke, three people reported respiratory issues.

The incident moved quickly enough that by 3 p.m., workers and shoppers were allowed to come back in.

While normally safe, lithium-ion batteries are still volatile -- they can potentially explode or catch fire if something like leakage isn't dealt with immediately. This year alone Apple stores have seen multiple battery incidents, including some fires.

This may be related to Apple's discounted replacements, instituted to placate people upset about the company throttling iPhones with weakened batteries. While the company has since made it possible to toggle throttling, people with older iPhones have been flooding Apple stores looking to get battery replacements before they return to $79 from their current $29. More foot traffic may mean a higher likelihood of discovering faults.

Comments

  • Reply 1 of 13
    nunzynunzy Posts: 662member
    Every company has batteries that overheat. But just watch the rabid haters attack Apple. Sad.
    watto_cobraolsredgeminipa
  • Reply 2 of 13
    flydogflydog Posts: 1,123member
     AppleInsider said:




    This may be related to Apple's discounted replacements, instituted to placate people upset about the company throttling iPhones with weakened batteries. While the company has since made it possible to toggle throttling, people with older iPhones have been flooding Apple stores looking to get battery replacements before they return to $79 from their current $29. More foot traffic may mean a higher likelihood of discovering faults.
    Not really seeing the connection here.  There’s a few unwarranted assumptions here that are not supported by the original Dutch article. The article doesn’t even mention who the iPad belonged to. 
    mac_doghammeroftruthnetmage
  • Reply 3 of 13
    dewmedewme Posts: 5,335member
    These batteries obviously have a certain failure rate like all mechanical, electrical, and active chemical products. I assume the failure rate follows the bathtub curve, suffering higher failure rates very early on (infant mortality) and late in the lifetime due to wear out. During the majority of the useful lifetime unprovoked failure rates are probably very low.

    Like anything based on probability you can still see clusters of failures that viewed in a narrow scope seem to defy the probabilistic expectations. Case in point, two weeks ago both my iPod 6 and iPhone 6 experienced battery bloat causing the screen to pop off. This occurred on two consecutive days! The iPhone battery was still at 97% after nearly 4 years of use and never experienced any battery issues. 

    Apple replaced both devices. The iPod was still under Apple Care so it cost me nothing for the new iPod. Apple charged me $29 for the replacement iPhone 6 Plus, which was probably fair. What was mildly disappointing was that I did catch the Genius Bar tech checking with the Apple Store supervisor to inquire whether to charge me for the iPhone replacement, so I assume they have discretion to waive the fee for battery failures. Despite the fact that I’ve bankrolled at least one genius’ kids college tuition with my purchases at the Apple Store over the years - and it was the same day Apple broke the 1 trillion market cap, no fee waiver for me. I guess Apple Store tech support supervisors don’t understand customer lifetime value (LTV). 
  • Reply 4 of 13
    Roger_FingasRoger_Fingas Posts: 148member, editor
    flydog said:
     AppleInsider said:




    This may be related to Apple's discounted replacements, instituted to placate people upset about the company throttling iPhones with weakened batteries. While the company has since made it possible to toggle throttling, people with older iPhones have been flooding Apple stores looking to get battery replacements before they return to $79 from their current $29. More foot traffic may mean a higher likelihood of discovering faults.
    Not really seeing the connection here.  There’s a few unwarranted assumptions here that are not supported by the original Dutch article. The article doesn’t even mention who the iPad belonged to. 
    It's not about the iPad specifically, just the higher incidence of reported battery leaks/fires at stores in general.
    watto_cobra
  • Reply 5 of 13
    dewme said:
    These batteries obviously have a certain failure rate like all mechanical, electrical, and active chemical products. I assume the failure rate follows the bathtub curve, suffering higher failure rates very early on (infant mortality) and late in the lifetime due to wear out. During the majority of the useful lifetime unprovoked failure rates are probably very low.

    Like anything based on probability you can still see clusters of failures that viewed in a narrow scope seem to defy the probabilistic expectations. Case in point, two weeks ago both my iPod 6 and iPhone 6 experienced battery bloat causing the screen to pop off. This occurred on two consecutive days! The iPhone battery was still at 97% after nearly 4 years of use and never experienced any battery issues. 

    Apple replaced both devices. The iPod was still under Apple Care so it cost me nothing for the new iPod. Apple charged me $29 for the replacement iPhone 6 Plus, which was probably fair. What was mildly disappointing was that I did catch the Genius Bar tech checking with the Apple Store supervisor to inquire whether to charge me for the iPhone replacement, so I assume they have discretion to waive the fee for battery failures. Despite the fact that I’ve bankrolled at least one genius’ kids college tuition with my purchases at the Apple Store over the years - and it was the same day Apple broke the 1 trillion market cap, no fee waiver for me. I guess Apple Store tech support supervisors don’t understand customer lifetime value (LTV). 
    Normally you would have to pay for the battery unless the phone was still under warranty. The fact that you have purchased a lot of Apple products does not entitle you to get free replacements no matter what you think. 

    Sometimes Apple will surprise you and cover the cost of a repair, but the problem is that creates the feeling of entitlement to a free repair when anything goes wrong with your device.  

    You didnt buy Apple products to get free replacements, you bought them because you liked them.

    My opinion is that Apple created more entitled customers by executing the battery replacement program rather then rolling back the software update and let your depleted battery power off your device unexpectedly and eventually kill your device by damaging the logic board.

    You got a $329 replacement for $29, don't act like a dbag because you expected a free one. 
    netmagewatto_cobrawilliamlondon
  • Reply 6 of 13
    Someone snuck in a Note 7 inside an iPad case.
    macseekerwatto_cobra
  • Reply 7 of 13
    flydogflydog Posts: 1,123member
    flydog said:
     AppleInsider said:




    This may be related to Apple's discounted replacements, instituted to placate people upset about the company throttling iPhones with weakened batteries. While the company has since made it possible to toggle throttling, people with older iPhones have been flooding Apple stores looking to get battery replacements before they return to $79 from their current $29. More foot traffic may mean a higher likelihood of discovering faults.
    Not really seeing the connection here.  There’s a few unwarranted assumptions here that are not supported by the original Dutch article. The article doesn’t even mention who the iPad belonged to. 
    It's not about the iPad specifically, just the higher incidence of reported battery leaks/fires at stores in general.
    Where is that mentioned in the Dutch article. Or anywhere for that matter. Did you make this up or can you point to a source?
  • Reply 8 of 13
    amar99amar99 Posts: 181member
    I paid for the $29 dollar iPhone battery replacement after getting the "low performance mode" message. Had to bring the phone back in the VERY NEXT day because the battery had expanded, breaking the seal between the phone body and the screen.

    Thankfully they were willing to replace the entire phone, even though it was out of warranty / AppleCare period.

    But it still makes me wonder about the quality control on their batteries as of late.
    edited August 2018 kestralnetmage
  • Reply 9 of 13
    Rayz2016Rayz2016 Posts: 6,957member
    flydog said:
    flydog said:
     AppleInsider said:




    This may be related to Apple's discounted replacements, instituted to placate people upset about the company throttling iPhones with weakened batteries. While the company has since made it possible to toggle throttling, people with older iPhones have been flooding Apple stores looking to get battery replacements before they return to $79 from their current $29. More foot traffic may mean a higher likelihood of discovering faults.
    Not really seeing the connection here.  There’s a few unwarranted assumptions here that are not supported by the original Dutch article. The article doesn’t even mention who the iPad belonged to. 
    It's not about the iPad specifically, just the higher incidence of reported battery leaks/fires at stores in general.
    Where is that mentioned in the Dutch article. Or anywhere for that matter. Did you make this up or can you point to a source?
    What you’re seeing here is the difference between blogging and journalism. 

    I can’t really see what the iPad battery has to do with the iPhone battery replacement program, no matter how hard the article author tried to link the two. 

    What we also don’t know is how many of the problem batteries were genuine Apple parts, or just cheap, unauthorised replacements (incidents occurring in China always make me suspicious because this is we’re cheap knockoff replacements have proven to be very dangerous). 

    And in one one of the incidents linked to by the article, the iPhone user bit into the battery while it was outside the phone. Who does that?



    edited August 2018
  • Reply 10 of 13
    JFC_PAJFC_PA Posts: 932member
    flydog said:
    flydog said:
     AppleInsider said:




    This may be related to Apple's discounted replacements, instituted to placate people upset about the company throttling iPhones with weakened batteries. While the company has since made it possible to toggle throttling, people with older iPhones have been flooding Apple stores looking to get battery replacements before they return to $79 from their current $29. More foot traffic may mean a higher likelihood of discovering faults.
    Not really seeing the connection here.  There’s a few unwarranted assumptions here that are not supported by the original Dutch article. The article doesn’t even mention who the iPad belonged to. 
    It's not about the iPad specifically, just the higher incidence of reported battery leaks/fires at stores in general.
    Where is that mentioned in the Dutch article. Or anywhere for that matter. Did you make this up or can you point to a source?
    This year alone Apple stores have seen multiple battery incidents, including some fires

    This may be related to Apple's discounted replacements, instituted to placate people upset about the company throttling iPhones with weakened batteries. ”

    ”multiple battery incidents”....”This may be related...”. Basically a summarizing conclusion to the article. And a higher volume of replacement submissions could easily result by simple statistical sampling factors to more battery related in-store incidents. 

    Not all that controversial. 
  • Reply 11 of 13
    Sandiegodude on Reddit stated “It was a customer iPad that had been run over by a car, not one of the demo unit”.
    Knowing it was physically damaged would have been a relavent point to note!
  • Reply 12 of 13
    GeorgeBMacGeorgeBMac Posts: 11,421member
    I'm looking forward to the Trash-Apple commercial from Samsung on this one!

    Also, what I have not yet hear reported was any details on the iPad.  Specifically:
    - Was this a new iPad or one a customer brought in?
    - Was it being repaired (a known trigger for fire) at the time?
  • Reply 13 of 13
    paxmanpaxman Posts: 4,729member
    I am surprised John Goodenough's solid state lithium batteries are not already in all IOS devices. I saw a story a bout a year ago where a lightbulb was plugged into the battery and the battery itself was being cut away piece by piece with a pair of scissors without affecting the light. I guess battery dev takes a very long time :( 

Sign In or Register to comment.