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08/04/09
simple answer, yes it is BMWs fault, Cars are designed to withstand impact for the safety of the driver, aside from the movies, cars do not explode from a crash, if they do, there is a flaw in the design.
what if you crashed your BMW because your ipod exploded in your crotch while you were doing 65 on the highway?
i would bet that if you survived, you would be pretty upset.
"If I drop my glass cup and it shatters and I cut myself, is it Ikea's fault?"
simple answer, no, it is not ikeas fault, the glass did exactly what it was expected to do, and you are being stupid for getting yourself cut, now it would be Ikeas fault if the glass exploded on impact and sent shards of glass through your skull and into your brain and kills you, because that would indicate that there is a flaw in the design of the glass as it is not behaving the way it is expected to behave when it is damaged. would it be right for ikea to send your family a letter saying that they would replace the glass and you should not disclose this incident to the media or else they will sue you.
would your family not want to tell everyone that there is a problem with the model of glass ware from ikea so someone else does not get killed?
"If I drop my Plasma TV and it stops working, do I blame Panasonic for it?"
not for dropping it, but what if it exploded and took out your neighborhood and killed 100 people? that would be unexpected and should warrant an investigation don't you think?
or would you be OK with Panasonic saying that they will just replace the monitor and then make you shut up about what happened under threat of litigation?
likewise, the ipod touch battery should not explode if it is dropped, what would happen if you fell asleep with your ipod and "god for bid" the slippery little sucker slipped out of your sleeping hands and fell to the floor, went "pop" and started a fire and killed everyone in the house?
would it be OK if apple just said that they would replace the ipod and make your extended family keep quiet about the incident or face litigation?
yes there are issues with "some" lithium ion battery designs, and it appears that apple is using a bad design as a search on google for exploding ipod brings up a bunch of exploding ipods. and it looks like apple knows this is an issue.
since the design of the ipod makes it very hard to replace the battery with an updated one, it is clear that it would cost A LOT of money from apple to replace or recall all of the ipods on the market. To me it seems that apple is just praying that nobody gets killed.
08/04/09
What's with all these people trying to defend Apple for a clearly defective product?
It's plain simple people: Be it Apple, Microsoft, Nokia or whatever company-
1- A product exploding should NOT be considered something comon or to be expected, and it doesn't fucking matter what part exploded, the company that manufactures and sells it is at fault;
2- A company trying to put blankets over the case CANNOT be dismissed as something "all companies do";
3- It's all fun and games when one of those explode while it's in your front pocket damaging your reproductive functions.
I mean, really, we can all admit that most commenters here have bias over this or that company, not to say most commenters are fanboys to some company, but really, this is ridiculous.
08/03/09
08/03/09
08/03/09
:)
08/03/09
Secondly, confidentially clauses are pretty standard boilerplate for settlement agreements of any kind, let's not act surprised that this was the case. But the guy seems overly paranoid about the whole thing, stating, "They’re putting a life sentence on myself, my daughter and Ellie’s mum, not to say anything to anyone. If we inadvertently did say anything, no matter what, they would take litigation against us." Then again, he is in the business of 'electronic security' so I guess being paranoid goes with the territory.
Overall though it sounds like he wasn't happy with the settlement offer from Apple and concluded that the 'compensation' from the media to run his story was more lucrative. I bet every media outlet in the civilized world now is trying to find their own homegrown version of an iPod/iPhone horror story to run now that the Seattle story from the last couple of weeks became so popular.
Maybe we'll hear about some unfortunate soul who read on the internet that they could get their perfectly functional iPod upgraded to the latest version simply by frying it in the microwave and then sending it in for warranty service only the microwave blew up and melted his face off. Or about a local bank robber somewhere that was clearly seen in security footage wearing white earbuds.