Last week, initial reports of some users in Asia experiencing screen-popping battery swelling in their iPhone 8 Plus began to trickle out. Since then, other incidents in Greece, Canada, and China have surfaced, and it seems the story has reached a tipping point. Apple has confirmed to Gizmodo that it is “looking into” the matter.
Apple’s confirmation was first reported by TechCrunch and CNET. When Gizmodo spoke to an Apple spokesperson on Friday, they declined to comment on the matter any further.
So far, there have been at least six reports in which the iPhone 8 either arrived with a swollen battery or the device’s battery was discovered to be swollen after charging. The outcome looks like this:
On Friday, Reuters reported that Chinese state media spoke with one man identified as Liu who received his iPhone 8 Plus in the mail and the battery was already swollen. In another case, a woman in Taiwan said that her device split open after she charged it with the included cable and wall adapter.
The good news, for you and Apple, is that none of the incidents involved the kind of explosions or fires that ultimately killed the Samsung Note 7. Three and a half months after Samsung recalled that device, the manufacturer concluded that there were two separate problems with the batteries: some had a welding issue, some were too large for the cell pouch. According to CNET, there were more than 100 incidents in the Samsung case.
For now, Apple’s situation could just be relegated to a handful of freak incidents, but it’s worth keeping an eye on if you’re still weighing your options between the iPhone 8 and the X.
[TechCrunch, CNET]