My PowerBook G4 Titanium overheated and melted. I called Apple support. They took my number and told me to wait for a call.
Ten minutes later, an executive in Cupertino called me and apologized for my "trouble." Then he made the a similar offer to the person in this story-- if I agreed to not talk about the incident, he would send me a fully loaded brand new PowerBook G4 (aluminum model at the time) worth almost $5k, an iPod, and an external hard drive.
I took the deal, of course, but refused to sign anything.
Here's a picture I sent to Apple HQ immediately after the incident: http://bit.ly/Gv93d
Absolutely. I understand that a company needs to release things quickly in order to be competitive - they can't test everything 100% in every situation. I wouldn't have the slightest problem if after a few months Apple announced, "we've discovered a problem in some of our batteries, if you experience a problem, please call this number for a refund/free repair/replacement" or something. But when they insist you don't tell anyone and threaten YOU with legal action? That's just not cool. Apple's been very disappointing lately. If it happened to me, I would gladly go to the press and skip out on the refund.
I can understand that a company, here Apple, will try by lawyers and other means to silence things but in the long run this is really bad and damaging to the image of a company.
I wonder why they didn't choose to just handle the matter gracefully? Would have avoided bad press, or am I missing something here?
It's the increases in energy density. You're packing lots and lots of energy into a small space. The challenge is to keep it stable. It's a similar problem to an explosive.
As people demand batteries that have much higher densities -- then it's going to push these boundaries... This wikipedia entry isn't a bad reference on it:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_density
Edit: .. and the rate at which you can tap that energy too.
After being passed around several departments, he spoke to an Apple executive on the telephone.
I'm mildly surprised he was able to get to an Apple exec so quickly. I've tried and given up in frustration. I did send an email afterwards, and got a response back. So it ended well in my case.
It's amazing to me that these devices don't fail more often. The chemistry behind a Li-Ion reaction is much more volatile than most people realize. It's a bit unnerving to think that I'll probably have one in my pocket for the next decade.
My PowerBook G4 Titanium overheated and melted. I called Apple support. They took my number and told me to wait for a call.
Ten minutes later, an executive in Cupertino called me and apologized for my "trouble." Then he made the a similar offer to the person in this story-- if I agreed to not talk about the incident, he would send me a fully loaded brand new PowerBook G4 (aluminum model at the time) worth almost $5k, an iPod, and an external hard drive.
I took the deal, of course, but refused to sign anything.
Here's a picture I sent to Apple HQ immediately after the incident: http://bit.ly/Gv93d