iPod Incident Delays Japanese Train

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The Japanese rail system is widely regarded as a beacon of to-the-minute efficiency and smooth, clean (if extremely crowded) operation. So for them, an eight minute delay in the operations is, relative to the United States, about the same kind of distressing as CNN announcing Zombie Apocalypse. And what’s the cause? An iPod.

More specifically, an overheated iPod. See, officials stopped the train when an “unusual smell” was reported on board a morning commuter train, and thus, the train was stopped. It was discovered that an iPod had overheated and “burst”, marking the 60th such incident reported in Japan following a recent move on Apple’s part to replace the batteries of iPods.

The delay only lasted eight minutes, and there were no injuries, but in Japanese terms, this is a pretty big delay for the normally super-efficient train system. It also represents a huge black eye to Apple, who was probably hoping to put the whole thing behind them now that they were fixing the battery problems.