Apple Agrees To Replace Some Overheating iPods

New information regarding an Emmy Award-winning news series about the overheating dangers of iPods.

KIRO 7 has learned that, for the first time, Apple has agreed to replace some overheating iPods.

Consumer Investigator Amy Clancy has warned for more than a year about the potential of iPod batteries to overheat and burn. Clancy was the first journalist worldwide to report that federal investigators with the US Consumer Product Safety Commission looked into multiple iPod fires, but decided not to ask Apple for a product recall.

Now, for the first time, Apple has agreed to replace overheated iPods---but only one model, and only in Japan.

Since 2008, Japan's Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry, or METI, has been warning consumers there about the dangers of overheating iPods, citing "a number of accidents in which iPod Nanos" overheated and sparked. According to METI, there have been around 60 overheating incidents in that country; including four burns--- all of them minor. Now, apparently because of government pressure, Apple is agreeing to replace iPod Nanos that have overheated—but only in Japan. And only first generation Nanos, the black and white, long-bodied mp3 players that were sold between September 2005 and December of 2006.

That looks like the model Rebecca Bracewell of Tacoma says suddenly burned in her apartment; an incident which caused no serious damage, but a Tacoma Fire Department report reveals was caused because Bracewell's iPod had "overheated and burned."

Bracewell told KIRO 7 Consumer Investigators after Clancy’s first iPod investigation aired in 2009, “I apologized for bringing them out because, obviously, my apartment wasn’t on fire. It wasn’t the stove. And he said, ‘no, this is what catches peoples’ houses on fire. This could have caught your house on fire.’”

On Thursday, when contacted by KIRO 7 for comment about the developments in Japan, Apple released a statement saying the company has "worked closely with METI to make sure first generation iPod Nano customers who are concerned with their battery have the latest information." And Apple spokesman Tom Neumayr adds, any first generation Nano customer in Japan who has concerns about the device's battery can have the battery replaced for free. Neumayr also tells Clancy, any first generation Nano owner in countries all over the world can get the help they need from Apple Care, a program he says has been in place since safety questions first arose in 2008.

But during KIRO 7’s more than year-long investigation, Clancy learned it wasn't just first generation iPod Nanos that suddenly sparked and burned: it’s happened with many models, including the most recent iPod Touch model and iPhones.

Clancy asked the Consumer Product Safety Commission what these new developments might mean here in the United States. Scott Wolfson, the CPSC’s Director of Information and Public Affairs tells Clancy the CPSC is now aware of what’s happened in Japan, and the agency is assessing the impact here, but that the number of overheated iPods is still very, very low. Wolfson encourages any consumer whose had an iPod overheat to report it to the Consumer Product Safety Commission, here.

For Apple’s complete statement Click Here.