By Andrew Orlowski for The Register.
This article has been reproduced with permission.
"We want [users] to take the batteries out of the laptops
immediately," the US Consumer Product Safety Commission told press
today.
Apple's battery recall page is here.
In August 2004, Apple recalled batteries in PowerBooks and iBooks
sold from January that year up to the time of the recall. In May
2005, Apple issued a recall of batteries in PowerBooks and iBooks
sold between October 2004 up to the time of the recall. The
batteries had been manufactured by LG Chem.
And in late July, Apple recalled
some MacBook Pro notebook batteries sold between February and May,
for "battery performance" reasons it didn't specify, although it
stressed there was no safety issue.
"In the 1990s, when Apple had a similar notebook problem –
PowerBooks caught fire and damaged the company's reputation at the
time – the problematic PowerBook acquired a funny nickname
inside the company: 'The Hindenbook'," writes Tim Onosko in a
submission to Dave Farber's IP Mailing List.
The recall of Dell's Zippo batteries will already cost Sony
between $200m and $300m, according to industry analysts, or exactly
$430m, if you want to be really scientific, stick your
finger in the air, and guess.
Australian airline Quantas has already banned
Dell laptops from being used with their batteries on board
their flights.
© The Register 2006
