Apple blames external damage for iPhones explosions

Bloomberg

Apple has blamed “external physical damage” for causing a handful of iPhones to explode or catch fire in China and insisted that its handsets posed no safety problem.
Fresh on the heels of Samsung’s worldwide Galaxy Note 7 safety fiasco, a Shanghai consumer watchdog said it had received eight recent reports of iPhones that spontaneously combusted while being used or charged.
In a statement late on Tuesday, the US tech giant said it had retrieved units for analysis and
conducted thorough tests on
phones which had experienced “thermal events”, but brushed off safety concerns.
“The units we’ve analysed so far have clearly shown that external physical damage happened to them which led to the thermal event,” the statement said. “We treat safety
as a top priority and have found
no cause for concern with these products.”
The company also denied being slow to respond, after the state-run Shanghai Consumer Council had urged it to address consumer complaints. The watchdog’s report quoted one woman as saying her iPhone 6s Plus exploded in August, shattering the screen and leav-
ing the battery and back of the phone blackened.
The council said it had received a sixfold surge in total complaints against Apple in the past two months, including sudden shutdowns of the iPhone 6 and 6s even though batteries still had enough power. The council did not say where the complaining iPhone users were located.
Apple last month offered to change iPhone 6s batteries for Chinese users who complained of the sudden shutdowns, but said the problem did not constitute a
safety issue. Samsung suffered a severe blow over its Galaxy Note 7’s woes, recalling some 2.5 million units after reports of the product catching fire.

PLANS FOR US INVESTMENT
Foxconn Technology Group,
the biggest assembler of Apple Inc. devices, is in preliminary discussions to make an investment
that would expand the company’s US operations.
The disclosure came hours after an announcement by US President-elect Donald Trump and SoftBank Group Corp.’s Masayoshi Son to invest $50 billion in the US and create 50,000 jobs. The money will come from SoftBank’s $100 billion technology fund, which was announced in October, a person familiar with the matter said. A document that Son held up after the meeting in Trump Tower also included the words “Foxconn,” “$7 billion” and “50,000 new jobs” in addition to SoftBank’s numbers.
“While the scope of the potential investment has not been determined, we will announce the details of any plans following the completion of direct discussions between our leadership and the relevant US officials,” Foxconn said in a statement. “Those plans would be made based on mutually-agreed terms.”
Foxconn gave no further details. The Taiwan-based manufacturer assembles iPhones, iPads and other Apple hardware outside the US, in addition to computers and appliances for other global brands. Trump has publicly called for Apple to move production back to the US to create jobs. Most of Foxconn’s assembly force is currently in China.
“Moving manufacturing is difficult and complicated,” said Bill Tsai, an analyst at Mega International Investment Services Corp., citing the need to find labor and build a supply chain. “Politics is temporary, business is permanent.”