Apple responds to flight attendant electrocution with webpage on how to recognize genuine chargers
Following the death of a Chinese flight attendant believed to have been electrocuted by a faulty third-party iPhone charger, Apple has added a new webpage to its Chinese site showing how to identify genuine Apple chargers.
Apple always puts the user’s safety first, so all of our products are subject to stringent safety and reliability testing, and are designed to meet government safety standards around the world, including the iPhone and iPad USB power adapters.
This overview will help you identify genuine Apple USB power adapters. When you need to charge the iPhone or iPad, we recommend that you use the supplied USB power adapter and USB cable. These adapters and cables are also available separately from Apple and Apple Authorized Resellers.
The usefulness of the webpage is slightly doubtful, given the fact that most third-party USB chargers come from trusted brands and are perfectly safe to use and that the issue is with the counterfeit chargers that mimic Apple’s charger so closely that it would be hard to tell them apart even with this guide. Apple clearly felt it had to respond in some way, however.
Given recent Chinese Government sensibilities, it is likely that a neutral response like this was judged to be politically safer than a direct statement blaming a locally-made counterfeit charger.