KIRO 7 in Seattle has an article about iPods catching fire and causing burns.

Frankly, it’s a bunch of sensationalist garbage. They’re playing up the “What if a child was killed?” angle a bit too much. The article is too focused on the iPod because the iPod is a very popular product. It’s ignoring the fact that many other products in the household have similar batteries, such as your cell phone. There have been more incidents of burning/exploding cell phone batteries than there have been of melting iPods.

The Consumer Product Safety Commission does get a small quote, though: “After conducting its own preliminary investigation, the federal agency determined that, with more than 175 million iPods sold, “the number of incidents is extremely small in relation to the number of products produced, making the risk of injury very low.””
The chances are so far less than one in a million. Literally… less than one in a million.

There are quotes from someone in there that is claiming there’s a much more severe risk, but there is nothing to really back that up. There really isn’t enough energy in an iPod or its battery to spark a fire unless it’s next to some fairly flammable materials. What the article says leads me to believe that someone is gearing up to file a lawsuit against Apple in hopes of a nice out of court payout.

Your iPod is just fine. Just don’t sleep with it, like any other consumer product. Over 175,000,000 of the products have been sold, and there have been no fatalities and only a handful reports of actual injuries. This week in the United States, more children will be taken to emergency rooms after falling off of playground equipment than children who have been injured by iPods in the past year.

Relax.

Tags: safety