Apple: Cracked European iPhones show outside pressure

Apple said on Friday that iPhones with shattered screens turned in by French and other European customers showed outside pressure that caused the cracking.

The company is looking into reports by customers across Europe that their iPhones overheated and burned them.

In some cases, iPhones were reported to have exploded.

“In all cases the glass cracked due to an external force that was applied to the iPhone,” Alan Hely, a London-based spokesman for Apple Europe, said in a statement. “There are no confirmed battery overheating incidents for iPhone 3GS and the number of reports we are investigating is in the single digits.”

The company has asked people to turn in the devices in question so they can be studied.

Europe accounts for about a fifth of Apple’s revenue, and Apple has sold 26 million iPhones since introducing the product in 2007.

France was one of four markets where it introduced the new iPhone 3GS model.

French Trade Minister Hervé Novelli met in Paris today with Michel Coulomb (in French), Apple's French marketing director, about an investigation by the country's consumer protection agency into the iPhone problems.

The European Union asked the company 10 days ago for information on the safety of its iPhone and iPod products after reports that they overheated or exploded, according to a Bloomberg report.