Over the past week, reports from a few iPhone 8 and iPhone 8 Plus owners have hinted that there is an issue with the battery of some of the devices causing the case of Apple’s new iPhone to split open and expose the smartphone’s internals.
Apple has now confirmed it is looking into it in a short statement “we are aware and looking into it”.
There appear to be only six or so reports so far of the iPhone 8 splitting along it’s seams — certainly less than a dozen that have been publicly identified — so the issue seems to be quite small in comparison to the millions of phones that Apple has likely already sold. In any manufacturing run that big, there are going to be occasional issues, so on some level seeing a few broken iPhones is expected.
Apple rival Samsung had big troubles with smartphone batteries in its Galaxy Note 7 smartphone. In that instance some Note 7 batteries caught fire, and the problem was widespread enough that Samsung had to recall all Note 7 handsets — at great expense.
In the case of the iPhone 8 the issue appears to be limited to batteries bloating/swelling — no fire reported so far.
Although the phone only went on sale on September 22 so it’s still early days for the device.
Apple did not release figures for the first weekend sales of the iPhone 8 and 8 Plus, as it has in the past with new iPhones, so it’s also not yet clear how many of these handsets are in the hands of buyers at this point.
Some analysts have suggested consumers may be holding off on upgrading their iPhone to buy the top-of-the-range iPhone X, which Apple also announced at the same time, but with a later release date.
Pre-sales for the iPhone X are due to begin on October 27, with the handset slated to ship on November 3.
