It's almost becoming hard to write stories that paint Apple in a negative light. There's just so many of them going around at the moment it feels like there's some sort of big conspiracy started by Bill Gates.
But since it's our job; here is the latest Apple related news; the company has been ordered to explain to Japan’s industry ministry what it plans to do about cases of its iPod Nano overheating and catching fire. Although this may sound like a joke it is apparently a genuinely alarming (albeit very rare) fault and according to Japan's economy, trade and industry ministry, there have been at least 27 incidents of the device overheating while charging with six of these started fires needing to be put out by firefighters.
The ministry has repeatedly asked Apple Japan to take measures, such as giving warnings or recalling the products, but have so far been unsuccessful in their appeal. The Ministry also ordered Apple to report overseas incidents of the Nano overheating.
Interestingly one of these 'overseas incidents' happened right here in the UK. You may remember the Ellie Stanborough story? Well, she was a girl from Liverpool, who's iPod touch 'blew up' i.e. it overheated and shot into the air. As the story goes, in order to get a refund, her father was asked to sign a letter which “agreed to keep the existence of this settlement agreement completely confidential”. It added any breach of the confidentiality “may result in Apple seeking damages and legal costs.” So basically Apple were blackmailing him and his daughter to keep quiet.
It obviously didn't work because she was in every tabloid in the country. Well whether Apples dodgy legal dealings are true or not it seems that the overheating/ exploding iPod is a real problem. It's certainly enough for America’s Consumer Product Safety Commission to have 800 pages of documents on cases where iPods started to smoke or burst into flames.
Perhaps this is one for the Mythbusters team?
Source: Sky News (Tech)