31 votes

Why a helium leak disabled every iPhone in a medical facility (2018)

Posted by Gaywallet
Tags: apple, ios, phones.smart, iphone, healthcare, hospitals, mri, helium, author.daniel oberhaus, source.vice
https://www.vice.com/en/article/why-a-helium-leak-disabled-every-iphone-in-a-medical-facility/

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Authors
Daniel Oberhaus, Luis Prada, Mary Frances "Francky" Knapp, Natalli Amato, Nicolette Accardi, Matthew Gault, Jordan Pearson
Published
Oct 30 2018
Word count
575 words

2 comments

  1. Carrie
    Link
    I love that Apple had a prepared response via the manual:

    I love that Apple had a prepared response via the manual:

    exposing iPhone to environments having high concentrations of industrial chemicals, including near evaporating liquified gasses such as helium, may damage or impair iPhone functionality” in the phone’s manual.

    17 votes
  2. disk
    Link
    That has to go on the list of "most surreal hardware/software faults in history"! Although I was aware that MEMS oscillators could theoretically be impacted by large concentrations of small...

    That has to go on the list of "most surreal hardware/software faults in history"! Although I was aware that MEMS oscillators could theoretically be impacted by large concentrations of small molecule gasses and high levels of noise, I never thought there would be a situation outside high power fast switching power supply racks, industrial environments that deal with hydrogen/helium (maybe this counts as one), etc. where they would be downright disabled.

    Fascinating read! I still think they are well worth the tradeoffs, and noisy/industrial/radiation applications can just stick to crystal oscillators

    7 votes