Filed under: Apple Corporate, iPhone
Woman sues Apple, claims false iPhone advertising
A Birmingham, Alabama, woman has sued Apple, claiming its television advertisements about the iPhone 3G being twice as fast as its predecessor are false. She also claims her handset is defective.
The woman, Jessica Smith, is seeking class-action status for her suit.
According to The Birmingham News, Smith's iPhone connects most often to the slower, older EDGE network, and not the 3G network that the advertisements claim.
Apple has a policy of not commenting on pending litigation, but Apple is, as Macworld puts it, "repeatedly sued" over a variety of complaints.
[Via Macworld.]
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
nick said 1:11PM on 8-22-2008
This wont hold it will be thrown out of court asap.
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mabhatter said 5:17PM on 8-22-2008
because she's so upset she'll throw the iphone 2.0 at the lawyers twice as fast as iphone 1.0 users do ... proving Apple's case. they never said WHAT was twice as fast!
Matt said 1:14PM on 8-22-2008
Apple should counter-sue for reckless behavior on the part of the woman: purchasing an iPhone when she clearly isn't bright enough to use one.
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Richard said 1:34PM on 8-22-2008
Yeah, Apple's launch of the iPhone has been flawless...
I think it's a legit complaint, legal action is a good way to get attention of the media and Apple.
I'm actally writing this on my iphone 3G, luckily I have good coverage around here, but I would be pissed off if my phone was not getting decent signal due to poor design, or inefficient firmware. 3G definitely could be faster, but what's with all the elitism?
Matt said 2:09PM on 8-22-2008
No elitism here. She expects the phone to magically perform flawlessly at twice the speed regardless of the local cellular infrastructure. Unless this is her first cellphone ever, she should already understand the concepts of signal attenuation and finite local coverage.
required said 2:33PM on 8-22-2008
matt, She expects the phone to magically perform flawlessly at twice the speed because (get this) that is what she was told and sold via their false advertising.
Jon H said 4:25PM on 8-22-2008
"I think it's a legit complaint, legal action is a good way to get attention of the media and Apple."
That might be the case if the courts were an infinite resource. They aren't. This moron is wasting taxpayer-funded resources that could be better used on actual injustices.
The woman has a phone that can run twice as fast, she just has to be in the right places for that to work. Next we'll hear about a mine worker suing Apple because he can't connect at all from a mile underground.
I can assure you, whatever the iPhone TV commercials might say, before she actually bought the phone the woman was presented with the appropriately qualified statements about cellular coverage. She *certainly* would have been given documents from AT&T stating that performance will vary with coverage.
She can't possibly claim to have been misled. She most likely signed documents that include the relevant disclaimers.
Dale said 4:46PM on 8-22-2008
If Apple disclaimered everything that could possibly affect the performance of the phone, they'd be looking at two hour spots.
Toby said 5:59PM on 8-22-2008
Richard, I'm trying to make sense of your comment.
You say that you typed your comment from your 3G iPhone and that luckily you have good coverage around you. Coverage sounds like AT&T's deal, not Apples. So lucky for you, AT&T provides good signal around your area. (Assuming your using AT&T)
You then go on to state that you would be pissed though if your phone was not getting decent signal due to poor design or inefficient firmware.
Technically there isn't any difference between the 'design' of your iPhone 3G and the 'design' of Jessica Smith's iPhone 3G. She also has all of the same firmware available to her that you do.
This would suggest that there is probably some other factors at fault for her woes. Perhaps a manufacturing defect or some other issue. Manufacturing defects are not at all uncommon no matter what the product is. That is nature of mass production. Defective products can always slip through the cracks thus most products have return policies and limited warranties covering defects. Last I checked, just about any Apple product has these policies accompanying them.
So... why is that you think it's a legit complaint again? There are other ways to take care of these types of frustrations than to go straight to a lawyer.
I am in no way insinuating that she isn't have problems with her phone. But I believe if you look at the larger picture, you would find that Jessica Smith is part of a minority of iPhone owners that are experiencing similar issues. No tech company is going to have quality control that guarantees 100% of the products coming off the line are in perfect working condition. That's what they strive for but when your cranking out hundreds of thousands of units in very short spans of time, that's a bit of a stretch.
I wouldn't expect someone to go suing McDonalds if they ordered a cheeseburger and were accidentally given a hamburger because there was some sort of error that took place on the assembly line that didn't get caught till the product made it to the end consumer. I would expect the end consumer try and remedy that situation by dealing directly with someone at McDonalds till they were given the 'cheeseburger' that they ordered. This may sound simple but I have been to some McDonalds where this could seriously be a chore from hell. But it still remains the same. The person that got that hamburger by mistake is part of a small minority in the grand scheme of things because according to McDonalds (and their many customers around the world), billions and billions of cheeseburgers have been sold and the majority of customers got their cheeseburger fix.
I can assure you that Apple is trying to pinpoint the issues that as best as they can that are causing the iPhone to behave in this manner for a minority of customers. Jessica Smith could very easily return her iPhone as being defective and chalk it up as a bad consumer experience with an Apple product. But for her to basically claim the iPhone 3G as a defective product across the entire installed user base is just flat out ignorant. I personally am still happy with my Gen 1 iPhone that I bought on the first iDay last June 29th and really haven't found any compelling reason to upgrade at this point in time. I do know plenty of iPhone 3G users though (most of whom never owned the first generation iPhone) that are unbelievably happy with their product as much of the majority of iPhone 3G users seem to be.
Steve said 2:08PM on 8-22-2008
wow. GET OVER IT! If you don't line the product RETURN IT and go buy a crackberry.
It always amazes me how people are able to sue a company over nearly everything.
And seriously (nothing personal to Alabama), I find it funny that a lady in alabama thinks she'll win (how much money?) against apple, the multi-billion dollar company. Whatever. :-)
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Ian said 1:21PM on 8-22-2008
She may have a point, though... It's not twice as fast and it in fact costs even more than before when you add in the contractually obligated monthly payments.
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Bobby said 1:32PM on 8-22-2008
It might be faster in some places but not as fast in others. If they have a perfect 3G connection it would be. They say that the cost to buy the phone is half as much. No one said that there would not be additional contractual fees.
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onedollarbill said 1:36PM on 8-22-2008
Every claim has a disclaimer. In this case the "*" next to the "Twice as fast. Half the price.*"
* Comparisons between iPhone 3G (8GB) and first-generation iPhone (8GB) running on EDGE. Actual speeds vary by site conditions. Requires new two-year AT&T rate plan, sold separately to qualified customers.
Some features, applications, and services are not available in all areas. See your carrier for details.
Some applications are not available in all areas. Application availability and pricing are subject to change.
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Howie Isaacks said 1:38PM on 8-22-2008
What a dumb bitch. She should be complaining to AT&T for not having their network upgraded to handle more 3G phones.
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Nick said 1:45PM on 8-22-2008
I'm no big Apple apologist, especially not these days, but come on -- they don't have any control over cellular coverage. They built the phone to be able to be used on the fastest mobile network available, which usually IS twice as fast as EDGE (or even moreso -- for me, it's about five times as fast). And like others are saying, the ads all have disclaimers of the typical "your mileage may vary" variety.
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required said 2:36PM on 8-22-2008
I thought Apple was selling and branding 3G as their invention.
marsh said 1:52PM on 8-22-2008
Hey, how about returning your phone to the store if you're not happy with it?
No, no, that would be... reasonable...
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Jon said 1:54PM on 8-22-2008
I'm not sure this case will go anywhere but hopefully it will bring media attention to the problem. I really don't think AT&T should be charging people more for 3G access when it is not in their area - they should give you the option for 2G only.
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bondsbw said 8:03PM on 8-22-2008
AT&T isn't really charging more for 3G. It's more that they are loaning people half the cost of the phone and adding the repayment to the data plan. Sure, they get more in the long run, but every loan has interest (in this case, around 9.5% if I calculated right).
Of course, once the contract period has expired, it costs more than the first iPhone. But it doesn't cost more than you would expect for an unlimited data plan.
supersalo said 1:58PM on 8-22-2008
@marsh: What? She should take responsibility for herself? What an *absurd* idea?
Apple didn't say it was "twice as fast everywhere". And like others have pointed out, how is Apple responsible for the cellular network? If it doesn't work where you live, either A) deal with it, B) move to where it does work better, C) return it.
Yeah, I'll sue and get money because I've been "wronged".
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