iPhone 3gs exploding expanding battery

Here's another. I've not spoken to Apple as it sounds like there's no point. I wonder if this will happen to my iPhone 4s or my iPad? 😕 I was going to try and repair it myself by replacing battery and housing but the force of the battery expanding has split some of the wiring 😮

Actually, you SHOULD go to the nearest Apple store and politely explain what happened. For about $80 (the price of new battery) they will give you a new or refurbished iPhone 3GS. You will then have a perfectly good phone with a new battery that will last another 3 years, and then it will destroy itself. :-) iPhone 3GS's are still selling for about $100, so this might be a good option. Or not.

Delighted to say that we got ours resolved yesterday. Booked an appointment at the apple store in cambridge using the contact support tools on here and turned up with a pile of bits. Handed over another 55 ukp for a "battery replacement" and left 10 mins later with a brand new (refurbished?) 3GS 16gb which they had in the stock cupboard.

Satisfied with the service, and the outcome.

But I'm still deeply annoyed that they couldn't provide some kind of warning? I can't believe that they can't detect an outgoing battery and warn the user to get it replaced. Even of they only have a 3 yr warning.

...and how come all these legacy models are "in stock" you can't buy a "new 4s 16gb anywhere yet they have a 3GS sitting on the shelf?

wombatz_uk wrote:

But I'm still deeply annoyed that they couldn't provide some kind of warning? I can't believe that they can't detect an outgoing battery and warn the user to get it replaced. Even of they only have a 3 yr warning.

Probably less than 0.01% of batteries fail this spectacularly. The rest just fade away, and that's pretty obvious. Or perhaps your battery life has been going down for a while, but you didn't notice.

...and how come all these legacy models are "in stock" you can't buy a "new 4s 16gb anywhere yet they have a 3GS sitting on the shelf?

Because if they sold the in stock legacy models there wouldn't be any left to to replace yours 😉

Maybe a small % of batteries overall. I'd be interested ti know what percentage in the 3GS compared to any other model, it there is something with comparable circulation at this venerable age. From looking at the the posts on here - it seems to be happening now for the 3GS and Im sure its a consequence of leaving the phone out of use for a while then coming back to it.

I dont know what diagnostics they can perform with the OS but I would be surprised if they cant predict the failure with some accuracy if they know the phone history and battery conditioning.

Like others on here, I'd just like to know before the next device goes belly up!

Just to note as I didn't mention it in my previous post, my wife stopped using the phone for a few months and it was sat in a drawer. Then about a week ago she decided to use it again and charged it up. The battery didn't start expanding till a few days later after charging however.

The explanation could be that the 3GS is 4 years old, so it's a time when battery problems are more likely just from age.

superjaz1 wrote:

Just to note as I didn't mention it in my previous post, my wife stopped using the phone for a few months and it was sat in a drawer. Then about a week ago she decided to use it again and charged it up. The battery didn't start expanding till a few days later after charging however.

That is significant. Leaving it unused that long without charging it will allow the battery to drain completely. Complete discharge is a death warrant for Lithium chemistry batteries, as it is for most other secondary batteries. (If you did the same with your car battery you would get the same results.) When the phone shuts off due to low battery under normal use there is still plenty of charge left in the battery; it shuts off early to protect the battery from total discharge. But leaving it uncharged after it shuts off will eventually drain it completely, as a few functions of the phone continue to operate (primarily maintaining RAM memory).

Another one bites the dust... Same thing happened to my iPhone 3GS. Didn't realise it was a battery problem until my uncle posted a pic of his phone.. and then thought.. "uuuhhh.. that happened to mine too!" That's when I realised. It's crazy. Am going to contact Apple tomorrow when I have the phone with me to make a complaint.. and somehow resolve this. I was only looking for my iPhone to loan someone as a spare phone.. and then saw it.. It wasn't plugged in or anything at the time..

went to Apple store (in the UK) - showed popped up phone - and got a replacement phone within days for £55 (the fee for replacement battery). Its a pain as the data is lost but at least I now have again a working phone.

I bet you are now backing up the phone.

It seems that Apple has already removed and filtered some postings here already, people this is not supposed to happen! LION batteries dont just expand after a few years, there is a production problem here I am sure and it seems a large amount of these are failing. I have LION batteries that are much older than the 3GS and work well still, if everyone can write down all the numbers off the battery that has failed then we can start a list the model and batch numbers, it might show a pattern, there is a batch of numbers on the top and a long number on the very bottom of each battery, lets see if there is a pattern. Stop paying for a replacement phone, Apple should replace this, remember the Ipod Nano first generation battery recall.....

Since Apple said that I was ranting I am going to try to re-post doing my own editing.

I had commented in the post removed by Apple that there are some people here who seem to post "their opinions" which seem to concentrate on minimizing our frustration. To me their opinion is irrelevant because I don't think any of them have experienced this incident and our frustration first hand. It doesn't take a genius to know and understand that batteries fail. We all know that batteries like anything else, have a life-cycle. Their postings pretend to be from subject matter experts point of view, who appear to have written the book on Li-Ion batteries technology. Therefore our frustrations are ridiculous. I wonder why their inflammatory posts are allowed to stay? One of them recently replied mockingly: "I bet you are now backing up the phone."

I ask you, how is this in any way constructive support advise? If it were once i can understand, but most of these comments have a very condescending tone which basically state the obvious but seem to be intended through sarcasm to make us feel like dummies.

I think, like many of you, after spending several thousands of dollars of my hard earned money on Apple products, I am entitled to express my frustrations on how i perceive Apple is mishandling this situation.

The points I made and which I think are shared by others who have had the same experience were:

• If the Li-Ion battery in the iPhone 3GS and any other IOS devices that have the "built-in" feature Apple says it designed into it, why didn't Apple state that clearly in the documentation that comes with the phones. In short, why didn't Apple let the customers know this upfront. They tell you after the fact like I am supposed to be keeping count of the number of "charging cycles". No regular average consumer knows or keeps track of that.
• If this built-in feature Apple claims these batteries have, was part of the product's design when it was conceived and they knew the battery would expand, causing the phone to pop open and essentially render it useless, why wouldn't they have also designed some type of indicator or warning on the screen letting the user know to "consider replacing the battery" like my Acer 5742 with a Li-Ion battery does. Which by the way, it hasn't exploded as some of these "troll" have indicated that any Li-Ion battery would.
• The retail price of the iPhone 3GS not subsidized was approximately $600 if you wanted to buy it from Apple off the shelf. You would think any reasonable thinking person would expect a device costing this much would last more than 3-5 years and have a useful life at least that long, right? So why on earth would Apple assume that those of us who have had this "unexpected" event would acquiesce with them and agree that 3 years is enough, and buy a new phone?
• If this was the case with the iPhone 3GS what about the other iPhones, iPads, iPods, etc. There are already documented same cases with iPhone 4 and some iPods. Do they have this build in feature as well where the device will explode, pop or expand as a result of a Li-Ion battery failure?
• The final point is that we know that this doesn't happen just to an Apple product, that is why we all believe in the quality Apple products have and I think honestly, we may have expected this from another company but not from Apple. So, we feel a huge let down, incredulous that a company with a reputation for quality, innovation and which has developed a "cult" following with customers so loyal that they forgo buying other manufacturers' products already out in the market and wait for Apple's version.

I believe there are significant examples here that indicate this is not a normal occurrence. I have a hard time believing Apple knew exactly that this battery would behave this way. If they did, they were negligent by not making the consumer aware.

I think they are trying to rely on the "goodwill" of the brand name that consumers have which i think is a horrible corporate strategy.

Hopefully somebody at Apple reads these posts comes to their senses and comes up with a strategy that is not as myopic as what they are using now in their next high level meeting.

Great! Certainly an expert on Li-Ion batteries like yourself knows this. Why didn't Apple state this in the product's documentation and make the customer aware before buying the product that the battery has a built in feature that unless its replaced it will render your phone useless.

Better yet why didnt they put a screen indicator that alerts the user to replace the battery.

You Sir may be so smart to know the nuances of Li-Ion batteries but i guarantee you the average consumer doesnt. And guess who has bought the majority of the quarter of a billion iPhones that have been sold? yes plain average uninformed consumers like me. Not experts like you Sir.

This is not true at all. Show me data. I have a regular laptop PC machine with a Li-Ion battery. The OS alerted me to replace the battery. A year ago! it has not expanded, exploded or anything of the sort.

My opinion is you are making generalizations. You have posted here hyperlinks to articles derogatory to other manufacturers of cell phones. How come your post hasnt been removed? It did violate the conditions of use. But more importantly, those batteries that failed from those other brand names are removable, so they didnt destroy the phones like the 3GS battery and 4 batteries do.