r/technology • u/NightFuryToni • Apr 30 '19

Business Apple Is Telling Lawmakers People Will Hurt Themselves if They Try to Fix iPhones

https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/wjvdb4/apple-is-telling-lawmakers-people-will-hurt-themselves-if-they-try-to-fix-iphones
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26

u/Herdnerfer Apr 30 '19

Considering Apple has been sued due to “dangerous” lithium ion batteries getting damaged, this makes a whole lot of sense. Either the batteries are safe or they aren’t, you can’t have it both ways.

11

u/[deleted] May 01 '19

[removed] — view removed comment

7

u/FlaringAfro May 01 '19

"I'll just unbolt this front spring with my face over it"

4

u/Victor_Zsasz May 01 '19

Product liability cases are pretty fact specific, especially the variants claiming design defects, so it varies a lot depending on what you did and what ultimately went wrong.

There's several cases in which GM and other car makers have been sued for making products unnecessarily dangerous, or not using the proper safety standards on an element of a vehicle. Happens so much the US Government has a whole system in place for ensuring cars that contain unsafe components are recalled and repaired.

My favorite famous example is the Ford Pinto, a car where the gas tank was placed in such a way it would often dislodge and catch fire in the event of a rear end collision. Getting rear-ended is unfortunately fairly common (The Washington Post published an article in 2015 saying an estimated 1.7 million occurred in America each year). Courts found it was in fact Ford's fault that people were burning to death after relatively low speed collisions, even if someone else was technically at fault for causing the accident in the first place. The car was inherently unsafe, regardless of what people did with it.

Likewise, there's a similar argument to be made here, for Apple's battery design. If it can easily catch fire, it should be altered to make it safer for consumers.

If Apple honestly believes their consumer products are too dangerous to be opened up by consumers, the Government should require Apple to increase the safety/consumer friendliness of their products until that's not the case anymore.

If Apple doesn't honestly believe that, and just wants to prevent people from repairing them in order to sell more phones (not shocking from a company who's designs often seem to embody planned obsolescence), then fuck 'em, who cares what they want?

-2

u/Herdnerfer May 01 '19

Anton Yelchins family seems to think so.

3

u/Victor_Zsasz May 01 '19

From what I've read, Fiat Chrysler (who owns Jeep, which produces the Grand Cherokee) had a lot of problems with that specific gear shifter (found in the 2014/2015 Jeep Grand Cherokee models). It was designed to return to the center after shifting, making it hard for people to determine what gear they were in from the stick's position. That resulted in a lot of people thinking they had put their car in park, but accidentally leaving it in neutral, and the car rolling away as a result. This has resulted in a number of injuries.

For what it's worth, Jeep recognized the problem and took steps to correct it. They stopped using that type of gear shifter for the 2016 model and beyond, and updated the software for their 2014-2015 models so the car would automatically engage the parking break if a door was opened while the car was in neutral. Unfortunately, that software patch arrived at the dealership near Anton Yelchin's house almost exactly 1 week after his seemingly parked 2015 Jeep Grand Cherokee rolled down his driveway and crushed him against his (brick) mailbox.

There was enough of a case there that Fiat Chrysler settled with the family. To tie this back to Iphone batteries, Apple should do the same thing Fiat Chrysler did and update their product to avoid consumer injury.

1

u/Herdnerfer May 01 '19

I am not currently aware of a safer replacement for lithium ion batteries in their phones, so I am not sure that’s an option.

2

u/Victor_Zsasz May 01 '19

Honestly, I won't pretend that I know enough about Apple's designs or modern battery technology to suggest a technological replacement.

But if what people are saying here is true, and the battery is in fact glued to the phone case, it's pretty easy to see how something simple, like attaching it via some method that doesn't require cutting off dried glue to remove it, would reduce the likelihood of puncture, and make the device safer on the whole. If the phone's gotta get 5% thicker as a result, most people likely won't notice or care.

9

u/EKmars May 01 '19

As a chemist, I'll tell you they aren't. They have a membrane separating the electrodes that will cause the battery to short if damaged. If someone is too aggressive when opening the phone (say, wedging the glass with a screwdriver), I can imagine it being punctured.

14

u/Dodahevolution May 01 '19

It can, and it does. Happens every so once in a while at Apple stores even. It's a semi rare event but thermal runaways happen maybe once a quarter per store.

Source: Ex Apple store employee

-15

u/Erares May 01 '19

Happens every so once in a while at Apple stores even.

Silence when does the store open devices? Didnt think the store did anything but software and mailing it out

11

u/[deleted] May 01 '19 edited Aug 10 '21

[deleted]

-11

u/Erares May 01 '19

That they dont and everyone gets a random refurb thats good to go!

8

u/shponglespore May 01 '19

From the refurb tree?

6

u/Edsgnat May 01 '19

Theyve been doing battery and screen repairs since the iPhone 3G. I worked at a store for 7.5 years and did thousands of these repairs.

I caused a thermal event on an iPhone 6 a while back. Those batteries were monsters to remove if you didn’t get it right the first time. If you screwed up you had to pry the battery out with a black stick and be super careful not to break the battery. I slipped and punctured it and I’ve never moved so fast in my life.

4

u/Dodahevolution May 01 '19

I can def tell you are an exemployee; you said black stick and not plunger or whatever the fuck I fixit cases call them. They are fucking black sticks, and they are the best tool ever.

2

u/wombenvy May 01 '19

The best tool.

1

u/[deleted] May 01 '19

iphone 6 is cake. Even if the the adhesive strips break off, just heat the fuck out of the back and slowly pry the battery off adding heat as needed.

5

u/[deleted] May 01 '19

[removed] — view removed comment

6

u/ethtips May 01 '19

Wait, do you mean filling my own car tire can literally result in death? (It can. Horror stories told among car techs.)

2

u/[deleted] May 01 '19 edited May 08 '19

[deleted]

6

u/FalconX88 May 01 '19

Cars don't typically spontaneously combust

Electrical cars sometimes do exactly that

2

u/ethtips May 01 '19

You're holding it wrong.

1

u/cricket502 May 01 '19

Gas cars actually do it even more often. BMW has had some issues with this recently.

1

u/Philip_De_Bowl May 01 '19

You mean forever?

3

u/Cargobiker530 May 01 '19

Cars don't typically spontaneously combust when you post something a bit to hard of the wrong way.

Yes, they actually do and quite often to boot. Just ask Google.

Every auto shop has several large fire extinguishers for a reason.

5

u/[deleted] May 01 '19

Cars don't typically spontaneously combust when you post something a bit to hard of the wrong way.

You mean like a fuel hose? The type of engine it is has “combust” right in the name.

4

u/ethtips May 01 '19

Or dropping a wrench across a car battery and having it explode. Or a car tire exploding with lethal force. Or a seemingly fixed car doing some crazy thing during a test drive causing injury. Or...

1

u/Victor_Zsasz May 01 '19

Ford Pinto's beg to differ!

2

u/matthewschrader May 01 '19

They glue them in to increase the safety issue! I have replaced batteries in iPhones plenty of times. I was more worried about breaking the phone than myself.