Gizmodo reports that a battery recall program for Apple PowerBooks and iBooks has started. “The US Consumer Product Safety Commission just made the Apple battery recall official. It’ll affect 1.1 million Sony-made batteries in the US alone. Between all the PS3’s bad press and these battery recalls, it’s not going to be an easy year for Sony, is it?
This is the second battery recall for my Powerbook G4. The first one was a recall on batteries made by LG Chem. Now, its the replacements for those recalled ones made by Sony. Oh well, its just a minor inconvenience for me. At least Apple is fast getting the new batteries to you.
And fortunatly, they were so well prepared for their announcement. First their support web site was having difficulties (still is quite slow), then their phone system has technical difficulties. Well, now that their website is up, it’s telling me my serial number is invalid or does not qualify, even though it is within the range of the recalled batteries. It’s a good thing their phone system is working again, though, because now I get to spend the rest of the day on hold! I know it’s a lot of batteries to recall, but they had to have predicted the increase in network trafic…
Update – I got through! apparently there are still problems. If anyone is trying to use the website and recieves the same message I did (not valid serial or does not qualify), this is apparently a common problem right now. I was told that they’re hoping to have the site fully functional by tonight or tommorow, and that it’s an internal problem as well, and that they can’t currently process your recall over the phone either.
Edited 2006-08-24 22:17
Replacing the battery on my Dell was suprisingly painless. I used the website they had up which ran fine, obviously if I had called my experience would have been different.
I called in because I wasn’t able to access the website. The representative was able to access it, but it said that the serial number wasn’t valid, which it was. He was able to over ride it and order me the replacement battery without going through the web site apparently. I even received a confirmation email.
I was going to by a PS3 despite the DRM debacle, but I don’t have 400 quid to burn (literally).
Wow!
Does anybody besides Sony make these batteries in sufficient quantity? Sony obviously has problems making a safe battery, but who else is there to make them?
Years ago, Sony made the best products ( except esoteric kinda stuff). Lately, everything I have Sony is breaking. Bought a very expensive Sony XBR TV… thing is breaking after 3 years. I have been looking on the internet and finding that Sony is pretty crappy stuff lately. Add to this the fact the Sony rootkit debacle. Their electronics are only slightly better than the Korean made junk.
I have a SONY DVD player I’m happy with that’s less than a year old. But given what I’m hearing, oh dear.
Sony audio equipment usually is really good quality for the money you pay. And, of course, its minidisc products (I’m a heavy MiniDisc user) are unbeatable by anything in terms of quality; both in structure as well as in sound (iPods and other .mp3 players don’t hold a candle to Sony’s portable MD line quality and feature-wise).
I don’t know for its Vaio line, but I do like the design of many Vaios.
I also have a MiniDisc recorder, and it is a really great device: sturdy, easy to use, with great audio quality. I also use the Sony plug-in power stereo mike, which gave me some amazing recordings.
I also had a VAIO, which turned to crap very quickly. Everything went almost simultaneously: the screen, the battery, the keyboard.
For audio recording, tho, I plan to get something other than a MD next time. Physical media is too cumbersome and noisy, and Sony’s is worse because of paranoia about illegal copies. The only reason it isn’t being beaten in the marketplace is (a) most MP3 recorders have baffingly bad user interfaces and nothing even close to the “instant on” of a tape recorder; and (b) most audio recorders have quality geared towards voice recording.
Sony always had the worst floppy disks.
Years ago, Sony made the best products ( except esoteric kinda stuff). Lately, everything I have Sony is breaking. Bought a very expensive Sony XBR TV… thing is breaking after 3 years. I have been looking on the internet and finding that Sony is pretty crappy stuff lately. Add to this the fact the Sony rootkit debacle. Their electronics are only slightly better than the Korean made junk.
Oh pulease, and you’re the same group who runs around assuming that all Sony stuff is made in Japan? sorry, to quote Armageddon: “American components, Russian Components, ALL MADE IN TAIWAN!”
Same situation here; sorry, I’ve yet to find a *SINGLE* Sony product thats actually worth the premium that they demand, their stuff has always been crap, expensive and excessively proprietary – the mini-disc and UMD being el-supremo examples of this stupidity.
Its nothing new, Toshiba’s quality has slipped – it used to be the gold standard for laptops, to which all others benchmarked themselves to; same goes for Fujitsu and Mitsumi.
Edited 2006-08-25 05:06
There has been a correction to this recall. The number of batteries is 1.8 million.
http://www.macrumors.com/
It’s 1.1 million batteries from iBooks and Powerbooks sold in the US and an additional 700,000 sold in other countries. So… 1.8 million all together.
Edited 2006-08-24 18:18
Im really amazed Apple still can’t manage to avoid shipping faulty hardware. Their quality assurance team must be smoking some serious drugs…
I remember my first Apple purchase experience; a Powerbook G4 ‘containing’ a defect CDROM and having half of the screen filled with pretty red pixels. Wow, that was worth the 2500$…
lithium is quite reative. A small fault could possibly create alot of heat.
Sony’s QA team is smoking the burning lithium not apple (in this case)
9 cases of problems of overheating and 2 cases of burning thigh, is not justificable to recall 1.8M batteries. Something politikal is going on. Dont blame SONY alone in this game.
come on this is not FDA approved drug where such miniscle problems can be magnified as life and death. When we buy car we know tires will puncture, engine willnot start, trany will blow. Similarly when we buy laptop, we know batteries will be overheat, LCD will have dead pixels, it won’t hibernate(especially on linux) thats why there is warranty period.
how many people optimize battery power, high speed fan, lower cpu speed for normal typing and web surfing? It is possible to keep laptop pretty cool operating at lower CPU speed.
Lithium batteries overheat but people don’t like noisy fan and go for quiet Apple. Engineers should mount batteries and cpu outside of laptop to solve such problem or just use OLPC type hand cranking devices.
Edited 2006-08-24 20:36
Not bad that after 3 good years using an iBook battery without issues you’ll be sent a new one, cant be bad 😉
Just glad i dont have this prob yet with the Macbook… was dreading that one … though mabey it wint be so bad if they send the battery first !!!
9 cases of problems of overheating and 2 cases of burning thigh, is not justificable to recall 1.8M batteries.
The zero cases – the mere possibility of something happening – can initiate a recall, consumer laws are tough, there’s also the small matter of the US legal system.
Can you imagine the amount Apple would have to pay out if someone’s house was burned down and someone was killed?
Not to mention if something was to happened on a plane!
If anything this is actually good PR for Apple.
Can you imagine the amount Apple would have to pay out if someone’s house was burned down and someone was killed?
Actually that would probably be less than the cost they’ll now have with recalling 1.8 million batteries… But on the other hand…if something like that happened it would be terrible PR of course.:)
Exactly, the recall it’s a great, but expensive :-), PR move, also it’s a great blow to the battery manufacturer, that incidentally it’s a competitor to apple in the music market 😉
What I find particularly amusing about this story is that when the stories were circulating a little while ago about Apple laptops, sorry “notebooks” getting excessively hot there were loads of smug Apple fans proclaiming,
“At least it doesn’t catch fire like a Dell”.
Quote from the article:
“Hazard: These lithium-ion batteries can overheat, posing a fire hazard to consumers.”
🙂
What about SONY batteries that are located into MP3’s (network walkmans) digital cameras (made by sony), mobile phones and/or PDAs (even my old Palm 515 has a SONY made battery) not to mention my Axim PDA..
It’s a shame that most of the television coverage (limited to small blurbs) of the laptop battery recalls only name Apple and Dell – most stories never mention that Sony actually manufactures the batteries.
-Bob