Apple Computer said today that it was recalling 1.8 million battery packs from its iBook G4 and PowerBook G4 laptop computers because of a risk that they could catch fire.
The batteries were made by a unit of Sony, which also made the 4.1 million notebook batteries recalled by Dell last week.
The Apple recall is the second-largest safety recall in the consumer electronics industry, after Dell?s.
The Consumer Products Safety Commission said in its announcement of the recall that Apple had reported nine incidents of batteries overheating, including two that resulted in minor burns and some minor property damage. The agency said no serious injuries or deaths were reported by Apple, which is based in Cupertino, Calif.
The lithium-ion batteries were in computers sold from October 2003 through August 2006. The commission said 700,000 of the battery packs are in computers sold outside the United States.
Apple has had previous recalls of laptop batteries. It recalled 128,000 batteries made by LG Chem Ltd. of South Korea in May 2005 and another 28,000 batteries from the same manufacturer in August 2004.