Apple Offers Free Cat Sweaters to Address iPad Issue

CUPERTINO , Calif. — Steven P. Jobs, chief executive of Apple, acknowledged Friday that the company’s iPad 3G posed some health risks for cats when users placed the device on top of their cats and then sat on the device, but said the same problems affected all tablet computers and had been widely exaggerated by the media.

“This has been blown so out of proportion that it is incredible,” Mr. Jobs said at a veterinary conference at the company’s headquarters.

In the past weeks, reports emerged that some cat owners had experienced diminished life-expectancy of their pets when using the iPad in certain positions, most notably the “feline death squat.” Isolated incidents of furniture stains and thigh lacerations were also reported, prompting a “Don’t Buy” recommendation from Cat Fancy, despite the magazine’s earlier endorsement of the touchscreen device as the top-rated feline seating accessory currently on the market.

Only one in 200 buyers has called the company to complain about squashed cat issues, Mr. Jobs said, adding “and presumably those users live in an area of low feline skeletal integrity. Or they’re just fat.”

Mr. Jobs said that to put the problems behind it, Apple would give free Teflon-coated sweaters — cases that wrap around the cat’s body and make it easier for the animal to slip out from underneath — to all iPad buyers who want them. But critics are skeptical, observing that the sweaters make it difficult to hold or stroke their pets, and some have reported mixed results when trying to fry eggs on the non-stick surface of a besweatered cat.

Mr. Jobs conceded that the iPad 3G had a slight increase in flattened cats over the iPad Wi-Fi, but said that the increase was minimal and that he believed it was because of the added weight due to the 3G radio. Wrapping the cat in a sweater solves the problem.

“The data supports the fact that the iPad is magical and revolutionary,” Mr. Jobs said. “And there is no ‘Cuddlesgate.’ There is a challenge to the entire industry to improve cat-flattening performance.”