Microsoft Surface Touch Cover splits within days

Some early users of the Touch Cover of Microsoft's Surface tablet say one of the edges splits to expose a wire just days after they starting using it.

A number of users on the Surface Forums site have reported the problem, which has also been experienced by Tom Warren, a writer on the Verge website and Matthew Baxter-Reynolds, a Windows developer.
The defect is identical in each case: the cover, which has an integral keyboard, begins to split at its seam where the device attaches magnetically to the main computer.

Microsoft did not respond to a request from The Guardian for information about how many reports there had been of the problem. Baxter-Reynolds was told to return his Touch Cover to Microsoft for a replacement, and Microsoft has been swapping faulty covers for users where it has retail stores.
It's unclear whether the problems that people have encountered are due to a faulty batch or are a subtle problem that will become more apparent as more people use it for longer- but the fact that users in the US and the UK have reported the problem suggests that it is not isolated to a single manufacturing batch.
Microsoft is expected to sell millions of the devices, though it has given no preliminary or forecast sales figures.