More iPhone 8 Plus owners have reported incidents of the smartphone cracking open due to swelling batteries.
With the increasing number of cases of split open iPhone 8 Plus units and memories of the Samsung Galaxy Note 7 recall still fresh in consumers' minds, should owners of the smartphone start to panic?
More Split Open iPhone 8 Plus Units
Last week, there were two reports of split open iPhone 8 Plus units. The first incident was in Taiwan, where a five-day-old iPhone 8 Plus split open while being charged, and the second incident was in Japan, when a customer found his iPhone 8 Plus cracked open upon unboxing the smartphone.
Adding to these two incidents are more cases of cracked open iPhone 8 Plus units, as reported by MacRumors.
The first new case was from Canada, when a customer returned his new iPhone 8 Plus the following day after its display popped out. The damage was said to have been caused, again, by a swelling battery that placed pressure on the device's assembly.
There was another case of an iPhone 8 Plus with split open case from an Apple device repair shop in Greece. The customers unboxed the smartphone at night, kept it plugged in and charging overnight, and woke up to an iPhone 8 Plus with a cracked open front panel.
Should iPhone 8 Plus Owners Start To Panic?
While more iPhone 8 Plus owners are reporting cases of swelling batteries, there is no need to panic just yet.
According to AppleInsider, the incidents are called infant failures, which are defects made in the first 30 days of the production of a certain device. The normal infant failure rate for lithium-ion batteries is about one in every one million, so the number of cases of an iPhone 8 Plus with a swelling battery is still within statistical probability.
There is also the possibility that the issue is due to mishandling the smartphones during the shipping process, but there is no definite way to measure or prove that.
Lastly, compared to the explosive Galaxy Note 7 that resulted in fire and property damage, there have so far been no reports of an iPhone 8 Plus unit going up in flames. That does not necessarily completely rule out the possibility that the issue will not escalate any further, but if the swelling batteries would lead to the iPhone 8 Plus catching fire, there would have been reports on it by now.
All that said, iPhone 8 Plus owners should hope for the best and prepare for the worst, while the world awaits the results of Apple's investigation into the matter.
