France's top trade official meets with Apple to discuss exploding iPhones

In the face of reports claiming that exploding iPhone screens are injuring users, the marketing manager of Apple France, Michael Coulumb, met with the top trade minister of France, Herve Novelli. After the meeting, a statement was released that said that the explosion was not due to any battery-related problems, but instead blamed a shock that broke the screen. The statement also said it was too early to determine if the iPhone users were at fault. The words almost mimic a previous release sent out by Apple in which the iPhone manufacturer said that the number of incidents could be counted on the fingers of a hand and that in all cases, the battery was not the cause of the explosion and instead, the cause was related to external pressure cracking the display.

Apple might need to recount the number of fingers on its hand because recent reports count 10 incidents in France with others occurring in Sweden, Holland and other locations; the latest incident happened to a 15 year old Belgian lad named Salvatore who was about to make a call on his iPhone when the screen "imploded" leaving Sal with no serious injury but with a two day long headache. In France, where the official competition and fraud watchdog, DGCCRF, is conducting an investigation, a teenager claims that he was hit in the eye with the shard from the handset's touchscreen. He says he wants a refund and will file a suit for damages. In another case, Apple came under attack for requiring the family of a girl in the UK to sign a confidentiality agreement before issuing a refund after another iPhone exploded. While Apple earlier this month called the reports a case of "isolated incidents", the European Commission has asked all 27 member nations to keep it informed of any problems with the device through the community's rapid alert system for dangerous consumer products, strangely called RAPEX. Our earlier report on the story mentioned that Apple was cooperating with the investigation, something that all European officials point out is still continuing.

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source: iLounge, TechCrunch via EngadgetMobile