Apple Is Looking Into Reports That Some iPhone 8s Are Falling Apart

Mark Lennihan/AP

These phones are coming apart at the seams.

The iPhone 8, Apple’s newest flagship phone—for now—went on sale last week, and reports are starting to trickle in that some users’ new phones are coming apart at the seams.

Most of the reports have been from Taiwanese and Chinese media outlets, according to The Next Web, and show phones where the screen panel has bulged out from the device, apparently because the battery expanded while charging.

In some cases, the phone owner was able to completely remove the front of the phone after it had started to bulge out.

According to Chinese site Phoenix New Media (link in Chinese), one customer bought a 64 GB iPhone 8 Plus, and started to see the screen bulge after about three minutes. Another customer reported that their iPhone arrived with the screen already bulging out from the device.

Apple confirmed to Mashable that it was looking into the issue, and it appears that the few bulging phones that have been discovered so far have been isolated incidents. Apple wasn’t immediately available to confirm to Quartz what was causing the bulging problem.

One of Apple’s battery suppliers is reportedly Samsung’s battery division, Samsung SDI, which was the same division that created the exploding batteries in Samsung’s Note 7 in 2016. The phone ended up being recalled around the world after multiple reports of the phones catching fire or exploding surfaced.

There aren’t many great reasons to shell out for the $700-and-up iPhone 8 over the other seven phones Apple is now selling, so perhaps now it’s best just to wait to see whether any more separating iPhone 8s emerge.

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