Two More iPhones Split At The Seams [UPDATE: Now 3]

It would appear that a couple more iPhone 8 Plus phones have opened themselves up for want of a bigger space for a battery. These two units add on to the two we reported last week, both of which within the the first week. In our first report we found one Japan, another in Taiwan. The two newest reports come from Greece and Canada.

While it's possible these units all came from the same manufacturer, it's sort of unlikely. Taiwan and Japan's units coming from the same manufacturing plant, I can believe is possible. But also Canada and Greece? That seems like a bit more unlikely a situation that they'd have come from the exact same plant – unless, of course, every single battery was made in the same place, then shipped to different manufacturing plants afterward.

The cases we've seen so far seem to fall into two categories, with two of each iPhone 8 Plus fitting in either category. One is an iPhone 8 Plus appearing with its display pushed up and out – appearing this way right out the just-opened new device box. The other sort is an iPhone 8 Plus that seemed normal until it was first charged – using official Apple accessories to do so.

Those two users that'd plugged their devices in did not seem to leave their devices charging for an inordinate amount of time, and no other strange circumstances seemed to be in play. It does seem that in every one of these four incidents, the display glass was unhinged from the sides of the iPhone 8 Plus as their battery expanded beyond normal size.

Both of these most recent cases were reported this week by MacRumors, who were given the Canadian Photo, while the other comes from the folks at Apple repair shop iRepair in Greece.

UPDATE: A separate case was reported in the early hours of October 2nd that we missed! That case came from NewMobileLife, who report that an iPhone 8 Plus expanded and pushed up the display glass like the others – this time in Hong Kong.

Of note – while battery failure like this is unlikely, it is entirely possible (and not unheard of) in the course of creating millions of smartphone units. It is a serious matter, but one that's gone without serious consequences thus far. While some previous battery failures started fires due to battery gas expansion then bursting, the iPhone 8 Plus seems ready to open up when pressure is applied from within.

It's quite likely that Apple's iPhone is designed in a way which allows this situation to unfold as it has, rather than risk such failure resulting in a fire – or worse still, an explosion. For their part, Apple seems to be on the case, and all (or most) units are already on their way back to the company for further inspection.