apple watch sudden screen shatter

My Apple Series 3 Watch (10 months old) shattered as I was sitting on my sofa Saturday night. I immediately contacted tech support and they scheduled an appointment at the Cumberland Mall/Atlanta Genius bar. I was told I had two options. I could either leave with a broken/unusable watch or have it repaired for $229. This completely went against the customer service opinion I had of Apple. They connected me to Apple Care while I was in the store and I explained what happened. The technician on the phone stated that it sounded like the battery expanded causing the screen to crack. He scheduled my watch to be picked up and evaluated. I received an email today that stated there was an "issue that was not stated in the original repair request." Apple is claiming that the "issue that was not stated in the original repair request" is the screen is cracked. NO KIDDING! That is exactly why I sent it in the first place. The issue is not that the screen cracked, but that it cracked while I was sitting on a sofa doing nothing. Clearly, after reading all of the posts I am not the only one that has experienced this. I am incredibly disappointed. Why would I ever pay $229 for a product that I cannot trust this situation will not happen again? I feel completed ripped off. I guess Apple feels that we have no other options. I do not want to give up because I really liked my Apple watch, but have no clue what to do next.

[Image Edited by Moderator to Remove Serial Number]

This exact same thing happened to me 2 nights ago. Watching TV and POP! Screen shattered on a 5 month old watch. I went to my Genius Bar appointment today and they said it had to be my fault and not covered. $229 to fix. I am VERY disappointed and will be contacting corporate, and if no resolution perhaps the news media. Did they resolve this for you?

Same exact thing just happened to my watch this past Sunday... in the basement watching TV with my son... watch on, sitting in an arm chair... then pop and the glass is completely shattered. Mine was an Apple Watch series 2 aluminum case. I sent it in on Monday, and after some back and forth with my case and a senior support rep they agreed to repair for no charge. Initially they told me it was likely because the battery had swelled and put pressure on the glass. But then they say it was due to "abuse" (not true).

Being that I know what happened and it is quite alarming that the glass can seemingly shatter spontaneously, I started searching around and found this thread. Hope this helps others, but I really think Apple needs to seriously look into this... imagine if someone is looking at their watch while this happens!!! I felt little pieces of glass hit me and had to vacuum the area, luckily I was not looking directly at it when it happened.

My watch was on the charger last night and was cracked when I woke up. Cut the end of my finger when I went to swipe up in the morning. It has a single crack that runs the entire perimeter of the screen, essentially along the curved part of the glass. This must be a weak point aka design flaw. Watch is 42mm aluminium: Space Grey, series 3 with cellular. 1 month old.

My watch broke when I drove a car, submitted it to our authorized service provider in Sweden Macforum and received a reply that I could buy a replacement unit for the price of 290 €.
It has cracked exactly like yours around the edge! And i bought it about 1 month ago and has not been dropt or something similar.. Its a Series 3 GPS 42mm.

Went to the Apple authorized service trying to repair my watch which is under warranty. They've charged me R$1400,00 approximately $430,00. I'm so disappointed right now. I also tried calling the phone service, they gave me the exact same price. The only apple store in São Paulo, where I live, is not receiving genius bar appointments because is fully booked. I'll post the pictures of my watch down below, the casing is in perfect shape, only the glass has completely shattered.

I've just had exactly the same thing happen - sudden, spontaneous shattering. No knocks, just an audible "pop", a shower of glass and this is what I found on my wrist. Was just sitting quietly working on my computer. Series 3, 5 months old. Sounds like it may be a known problem though without "official" recognition from Apple. Have talked with customer service just now and have an appointment with a technician tomorrow.

The exact same thing happened to me! Purchased my Apple Sports watch 3rd gen back in October 2017 and in January my screen randomly fell off. Always been super careful with it and there wasn't a scratch on my screen. I was watching TV when I tried to grab the remote and I found my Apple Watch screen in my lap. Went to the Genius Bar and they though it was due to a swollen battery, after sending it in they presented me a 260 euros bill. Denied service and contacted my creditcard insurance. They did cover most of the replacement costs and I just brought my watch back in for a second time.

They told me it was my own fault and I believed them the first time.. because they told me there was a super tiny impact point not visible to the human eye.. They did add a microscopic photo and there was a small dot visible. But now im not sure if that was also there when I turned it in the first time..

Apparently the 3rd gen glass had some horrible weak points at the corners of the glass, especially when compared to the first gen watch. What should I do now? If I get my replacement would I still be able to get my money back if they do set up a 3rd gen replacement program in the future?

I got the same problem. I placed my apple watch on the charger last nite. After a few hours, I found the whole screen cracked around the perimeter...just like the others are talking about. But my watch is out of warranty...I have made an appointment in one of their retail shop to review the situation. Does Apple knows about such manufacturing fault of the watch?

Add another Apple Series 3 to the list of spontaneously cracking screens. Gave it to my wife for Mothers Day (2018). Not even a week out of the box. She looked down and noticed a crack around the outside of the screen. In just the short time she had it, she had already loved it and treated it with the utmost care. She is incredibly disappointed.

Apple advised to send it in and they’ll evaluate it. We’ll see if they’ll handle this fairly. I’m not encouraged by many of these posts.

While Apple can be reasonably worried about fraud with this type of problem, by now, they should have developed some way of reasonably corroborating how it occurred. With such tight spaces in these devices, it wouldn’t take much to break that kind of material if a battery swelled even in the slightest imperceptible way (or vented in the sealed compartment).

If they don’t do the right thing here, I plan to do my best to attract media attention to this issue. This is a serious problem for many reasons, not the least of which is customer safety.

I had a very similar experience. Total screen crazed with screen lifting off while wearing a series 3 on my wrist.

No impacts experience, the watch was on my wrist under my sleeve. It looks different to the typical impact images shown about the net as in my case the whole screen is crazed. My only explaination is that I hade recently gone from a cold environment to a hot one and perhaps some thermal stress fracturing had occured. The battery was not obviously swollen although it did look missaligned.

I took it to my nearest Genius bar who referred me to a manager who said it had been impacted as evidenced by the shattered glass. I asked if I would have felt such an impact sufficient to destroy the face, he said yes, which essentially meant he was calling me a liar... the conversation was not able to progress from there.

I have Apple Care so the cost of replacement would be quite reasonable. However, if I accept AppleCare it seems I am required to sign-off that the issue was my fault. This seems to me to be disengenous and will prevent it from getting Apples QC attention. I have therefore elected to purchase a new Apple watch (which has the advantage of having the device back immediately as it is a really useful tool). I am also now able to fight the case through consumer affairs which I am now doing. Hopefully someone at Apple will take note and they will start to recognise this is actually happening.

Here is a picture of what I saw as I rolled up my sleeve.

... Note the watch still works.

I just waited 3 hours at Apple after phone support told me $230. Got a technitian and he just looked it over and said we don’t do repairs here so we will ship it out for free. It seems like they are finally dealing with the flaw. I read so many of the reply’s and they all were pretty much $$$.

Hey. So. I got a real disappointing email yesterday telling me to pay to fix it after the Apple store told me it was covered. See pic. Also. The corner wasn’t broken when I gave it to Apple. Dunno if that is what they are trying to show me.

Ok so if you’re just tuning into my story. I called Apple and they told me to pay. I then when into Apple and they said it was free replacement. They shipped it to apple and they then emailed me telling me to pay, so I called Apple. The senior advisor said he would wave the fee just 1 time for me. So it’s getting fixed for free.