Defective iPad battery: Apple Store had to be cleared

In Amsterdam, the fire brigade had to move out on Sunday for use in an Apple Store. Three people had had breathing problems, trigger was probably a defective battery, said the fire fighters on Twitter.

Brandweer aanwezig bij incident met mobiel apparaat bij de # AppleStore #Leidseplein. Geen rook, wel drie person met ademhalingsproblemen. Vermoedelijk door een lekkende accupack. Zij became ter plaatse nagekeken.

According to local media, an iPad battery should have triggered the incident, the store had to be temporarily vacated and ventilated. Employees would have put the battery immediately in a box of sand to prevent a fire. According to the fire department, smoke did not form. The respiratory irritation of those affected could be due to harmful vapors that should have leaked from the battery.

No comment from Apple

Whether the battery was damaged during an exchange or a repair is unclear. Apple does not want to comment on the incident.

The fact that batteries from Apple are damaged during replacement and overheat occurs now and then. In Zurich and in the Spanish city of Valencia, for example, this happened in January this year. Since Apple currently offers the iPhone battery replacement at a discounted price to apologize for the poorly communicated processor throttling in old iPhones, the Apple Store employees need to open a particularly large number of devices. Potentially dangerous but are the much larger batteries in the iPad.

photo gallery

8 pictures

Even during operation, modern batteries can overheat. Samsung had to initiate a recall for its Galaxy Note 7 in 2016 after several devices caught fire.