Battery Hazard Keeps iBooks Out of School

August 29th, 2006 at 3:00 PM - News by Jeff Gamet

Appleis iBook G4 and PowerBook G4 battery recall has prompted Quaker Valley High School in Pennsylvania to postpone issuing iBooks to its students. The Pittsburgh Tribune-Review reports that the school issues its 600 students iBooks at the beginning of each year, but the potential for a laptop to overheat or catch fire caused the school to withhold the computers until each battery can be checked.

The school is concerned that the batteries in its laptops may be part of Appleis recall that involves Sony-made batteries that may catch fire due to metal fragments inside the cells.

School district spokeswoman Martha Smith said "We will deploy our laptops once everything is OK. This will frustrate our teachers a little bit." Both teachers and students rely on the iBooks for class assignments and homework.

Apple is covering the costs of inspecting and replacing the batteries.