An Apple iPod which is said to have shot out sparks while recharging has caused the Japanese government to investigate a possible defect in the lithium-ion battery in all iPod Nanos.

The incident occurred back in January in the Kanagawa Prefecture in Tokyo. Apple then took two months to report the problem to the country’s trade and economy ministry, only telling them in March.

No-one was injured, but the problem has got to be of concern to Apple Japan, who while not contesting the ministry statement concerning the issue which was published on Wednesday morning, declined to comment further.

The Apple iPod Nano which was affected has the model number MA099J/A, and according to Yahoo! News, Masayoshi Suzuki, an Apple spokesman in Tokyo, admitted it was still unclear where else this particular model was sold besides Japan.

The trade and economy ministry, which oversees product problems, has ordered Apple Japan to find out the cause of the suspected fire and report their findings back to the government.

Even though one iPod Nano is known to have been affected in this way, it’s thought that around 425,000 of the same model were shipped in to Japan, so depending on the investigation’s findings, this could yet develop in to a major problem for Apple.

This isn’t the first time that lithium-ion batteries have been suspected of causing electrical items to set on fire, with a series of blazes in laptops recently resulting in global recalls.

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Entry was posted on Wednesday, March 12th, 2008 at 5:32 am under Apple, Japan, Technology.  Print This Post

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