Apple Is Investigating More Broken iPhone 8 Plus Batteries

Apple is investigating further reports of iPhone 8 Plus battery bloat, with more devices reportedly breaking and separating in half due to expanding batteries. Last week, the company confirmed it was investigating incidents of the battery problem in Taiwan and China, but reports have slightly snowballed from there, with more cases cropping up in Canada and Greece. 

There's now a total of five incidents of swelling batteries causing a minor headache for the tech giant, The Guardian reports. According to additional reports in Chinese state media earlier this week, one customer received a cracked device in the mail, similarly to another user in Japan who posted a photo of a wedged-open handset to Twitter: 

The obvious parallel is Samsung's Galaxy Note 7 exploding battery issue, which ballooned in scope over the course of several months last year with numerous reports of devices randomly igniting and occasionally causing customers serious bodily harm. While a calamitous dilemma for the Korean tech giant, which lost upwards of $18 billion for supplying the market with an excess of exploding batteries that forced authorities to completely recall the device, it's likely that Apple won't experience anything approaching that magnitude. 

Apple's massive supply chain sells anywhere between 40 and 80 million phones a quarter, so it isn't completely unwarranted for minor issues to arise with such a massive manufacturing quota. Especially when considering the iPhone 8 has only been on the market since September 22, it's pretty clear that buying a new phone while it's basically in its beta-test phase is an ill-advised move. 

While the company investigates the causes of the problem, it's surely hoping its 10th anniversary iPhone X hits the market without any kind of structural defect next month. 

Sign up here for our daily Thrillist email and subscribe here for our YouTube channel to get your fix of the best in food/drink/fun.

Sam Blum is a News Staff Writer for Thrillist. He's also a martial arts and music nerd who appreciates a fine sandwich and cute dogs. Find his clips in The Guardian, Rolling Stone, The A.V. Club and Esquire. He's on Twitter @Blumnessmonster