Frenchman hurt in new 'exploding iPhone' incident

Yassine Bouhadi, a 26-year-old supermarket watchman from the southeastern town of Villevieille, said he was typing a text message on Monday afternoon when the screen exploded.

Bouhadi, who says he was hit in the eye with a glass shard, said he was "very angry" and planned to consult a doctor and file suit for damages.

"I want an explanation about this damned telephone," said Bouhadi, who bought the hugely-popular smartphone device for 600 euros (850 dollars) three months ago and now wants his money back.

France's official competition, consumer affairs and fraud watchdog, the DGCCRF, said Tuesday it had opened an investigation after a French teenager suffered an eye injury in a similar iPhone incident earlier this month.

"An investigation is under way. We have been alerted to the problem and we are looking into it closely," said a spokesman from the agency.

The US technology giant Apple, which makes the iPhone and the iPod music player, assured the European Union on August 14 that the exploding screen cases reported so far were "isolated incidents."

The French cases come a few weeks after an uproar in Britain over an exploding iPod owned by an 11-year-old girl.

And a US television station reported last month that an "alarming number" of iPods had burst into flames, though without causing serious injury, a problem apparently caused by overheated lithium ion batteries.

A spokesman for France's consumer rights group, UFC-Que Choisir, called on Apple to "communicate a bit more with its customers" about reported glitches with its iPod and iPhone devices.

"We want to know if this is an isolated incident as they claim, or a real problem involving the iPhone -- in which case, what are they planning by way of compensation and to prevent it happening again?"

(c) 2009 AFP